Heroes Are Stupid, Villains Are Attractive
by Meresger
Summary: "Dark and light are now mixed as heroes seem stupid and villains are attractive and pitied." The dead have returned to Storybrooke to upset the happy endings. Set after "True Love: Tinder For Fairy Tales". (Genre is more complex than I could select. Ultimately Swanfire romance dramedy-ish.)
1. No Coffee Means No Sex

Title: Heroes Are Stupid, Villains Are Attractive

Disclaimer: I don't own _Once Upon A Time_. If I did, Adam  & Eddy would be fired and picking up litter by the side of the highway.

Summary: "Dark and light are now mixed as heroes seem stupid and villains are attractive and pitied." The dead have returned to Storybrooke to upset the happy endings. (Swanfire.)

Author's Note: I'm going to call this a dark dramedy with a liberal dose of _South Park_ -like satire, because _Once Upon A Time_ has crossed the 98% pee threshold.

Dedication:Thank you to everyone whose rants on tumblr inspired this story, filmscoreaficionado and brorotica for the titles, twuwuvdearie (who's inspirational post was sadly deleted), and especially sarashouldbestudying who let me have fun with a short crack fic from Belle's POV. Anyone I haven't mentioned, apologies in advance. If you catch something from a post of yours or someone you know that hasn't been credited, please let me know and I will footnote accordingly.

PS: Just for fun, I've tried to fit in some Ridiculous Sentence Prompts by nothingeverlost at tumblr. (post/119051293643/ridiculous-sentence-prompts). I'm not sure if I'll get all of them.

* * *

 **HEROES ARE STUPID**

 **VILLAINS ARE ATTRACTIVE**

 **(or _I Don't Hate This Female Character, I Only Hate The Lazy Writing and Shallow Male-Based Wish Fulfillment That Went Into Her_ , an increasingly frustrated ongoing novel)**

"Dark and light are now mixed as heroes seem stupid and villains are attractive and pitied."

— filmscoreaficionado on tumblr, "Where Once Upon A Time went wrong: part 2"

* * *

 **CHAPTER ONE: NO COFFEE MEANS NO SEX**

(In which Neal broods and Ruby rants, because some lame-ass book release two years later is not compensation for cruelty against anthropomorphs.)

The sky above Storybrooke was gray, the temperature chilly and everything just a bit damp. which was pretty much the weather in Storybrooke all year round, save arbitrarily out-of-season snow falls and heatwaves, of course.

This gloom suited Neal's mood just fine as he sat at Granny's with a cup of coffee in his hand, staring vacantly out the side window, as had become his habit such that his chosen booth was always left empty when he came in and sat down with his back to the door to gaze out at the alley. It wasn't because he was liked the view or was looking for anything in particular. It was more the opposite, in fact. Few people ever walked through the alley and he'd rather watch plastic bags blowing out of the trash bins and the occasional stray cat than chance seeing Emma walk by, hung off the arm of Killian Jones with that stupid smile on her face that made her look like she was under a spell - one part deliriously happy, one part devilishly horny, and one part disgustingly oblivious and unapologetic that their public display of affection bordered on that obscenely inappropriate.

When they'd met (again) in Manhattan, Neal had thought the girl he loved was still there, beneath the hurt and the fortress of a wall around her heart. He _thought_ he'd seen glimpses in that girlish smile and the way she walked, that bit of a skip in her step still present, but apparently he'd been mistaken, because the Emma Swan he rediscovered again was a virtual stranger. Maybe it was emotional and psychological trauma from the Dark One thing, as Belle said his papa had a long recovery; or maybe it was the company she kept in the form of that two-faced pirate, a lying puppet, Henry's sociopath of an adoptive mother, and Emma's self-righteous and obnoxiously unkind and rather dimwitted parents who were touted as the epitome of good leadership and moral fortitude... or a combination of all of the above.

Regardless, Neal felt like he didn't know this woman who'd grown a few years older and a lot of years _un_ wiser during his absence. And wasn't that some fucked up irony? He'd returned from the dead only to mourn the loss of the woman he'd died for and be haunted by this doppelgänger who looked like her but acted like a Pod Person. It just didn't seem fair that he'd lost his mother to Hook and his father to the Dark One... and then lost Emma to the very same. It quite frankly felt like the universe was having a good laugh at his expense.

Maybe this was ongoing punishment for bringing his father back from the dead. And _hoo boy_ had _that_ turned out just _great_! Not that anyone would have probably believed his old man about the whole Dark One escaping and finding a new host thing, but still, not even trusting Belle to help, not even trying to get sympathy from the good guys when he had the whole "I just sacrificed my life for all of you" to hold over them? Sometimes his father could be a real idiot. And maybe that apple didn't fall far from the tree, Neal had to concede, but he'd used _Hook_ as a pawn. _Hook_! And sure, _he_ hated him, but everyone else had already been swayed by the pirate's false charms, which his papa would have known if he ever interacted with anyone outside of his shop, so that had blown up in his face badly. Everyone believed Hook that he was up to no good, even Belle - because _The Charmings_ told her the crock of shit that Hook sold them - so his papa never got to fully test how much old and powerful magic The Hat could contain, and the end result was _Emma_ becoming the Dark One! Because, for some reason, True Love's Kiss didn't work in this world, or maybe it would have still unleashed the darkness, but at the very least his papa and Belle could have gotten that instead of magical heart bypass surgery, since it seemed to be the only way people around here deemed any love real enough to matter.

Being a good person? A good friend? A good parent? A good spouse? _Nah_. Those didn't amount to a hill of magic beans if you hadn't shared a rainbow-y smooch.

Which meant what he felt for Emma, what they'd once shared, didn't matter. He was just a sperm-donor that had regrettably turned up after they thought they were rid of his annoying presence in their perfectly fucked up family!

It was frustrating as hell, because Neal considered himself one of the good guys. And he'd died thinking that Emma considered him one too, but now here he was and it felt like Killian got his hook in her heart and twisted her view of villains and heroes. And the end result was a world where dark and light were now mixed as heroes seemed stupid and villains were attractive and pitied. It beat being trapped in the Vault of the Dark One, sure, but even being tormented by Pan in Neverland wasn't _this_ demoralizing.

"You can't keep doing this to yourself," Ruby advised, bringing his attention back to his surroundings.

"Doing what?" Neal feign ignorance.

"Coming in here every day for coffee hoping a time portal will open and Emma Swan Circa 2012 will show up," she told him pointedly, then amended, "Waiting to be included by people who've unfriended you, wondering what you did to make them toss out your friendship like it never mattered or if it ever mattered at all and you were just a big chump for thinking that overtures marking your heroism, your honorary family status, were genuinely given instead of just selfish grandstanding using you as a prop. I've been where you are, and believe me, it'll only get you an ulcer."

Neal 's brows furrowed, flicking his brown eyes to the waitress' blue ones as she slid into the seat opposite. "You and Emma's parents were friends, right?"

" _Were_ being the operative word," replied Ruby. "I was Snow's best friend, a good friend with David. They made me Emma's godmother. I thought we'd pick up where we left off after the Curse broke. I thought I'd gelled with Emma during the Curse, so when the Curse broke and David and I seemed tight while Emma and Mary Margaret were in the Enchanted Forest battling Cora, I was excited. I thought I'd finally get to do the godmother thing, even if it was a bit weird being younger than Emma, because we were all friends. Only we weren't. Not anymore. None of them cared about arresting King George for ax murdering Billy or getting equal rights for anthropomorphic humans so never again could one of us be killed and the crime passed off as 'but he/she wasn't a real person until they were cursed into this world'," she scoffed. "It was always 'later, Ruby, we have this important family crisis to deal with _without you_.'"

Ruby crossed her arms as she continued with a frown, "And it wasn't long after they sent you and Belle packing on your own that they replaced me with Robin Hood as their favorite tracker so Snow could try and set him and Regina up. I tried to inspire some... giving a shit about my having been part of their group, their _family_ , at Prince Neal's coronation, but the fact that I remembered how they met didn't seem to mean anything. It was all about how adorable they were and then Hook oozed his way into the conversation and their past and they immediately forgot about me.

"When Mary Margaret appointed herself mayor, I tried to bring up the rights thing again, and in response she didn't even _invite_ me to her so-called fireside chat that included a half dozen of her most avoid supporters who, for some stupid reason, trusted _her_ to deal with the power crisis, because that's totally something a fourth grade teacher would know how to deal with and not cause a massive fuel shortage and rolling blackouts. And, of course, she promptly stepped down begging Regina to take over but never apologized for raising everyone's electricity bills as a result of her 'I'm Snow White, I can do anything regardless of absolutely no knowledge on the subject!' and made it seem like she was the victim because the Curse had appointed her to be in control, the Curse she cast that she made absolutely unnecessary because by bringing David back from the dead, that voided the required price of the Curse, so Emma didn't stop Zelena, lost her magic, got sucked into a time portal, and as a result we are all now living in this fucked up alternate timeline!"

Ruby huffed, then concluded. "Anyway, it's pretty clear now they only cared about what I could do _for them_ , whether it was bringing Snow food when she was on the run or mauling Regina's guards during the war. And now that everyone knows what I am and would pull a Billy on my ass if they though they could get a jump on me or avoid Ganny putting an arrow through their hearts, Snow White and Prince Charming are not going to associate with someone who couldn't get a wedding cake at the Bakery, because it's against their moral code to serve werewolves. I mean, a pirate they barely knew who'd committed rape and murder, who tortured people, who was proud of his long history of whoring, sure, he was redeemed by virtue of having a hard-on for Emma so Mary Margaret could plan her fantasy dream wedding, but their best friend for _years_ who ate her boyfriend because _Snow_ screwed up and made me believe that he was the werewolf who had full control of her curse and only ever killed people on their orders? _Nope_. I went from honorary sister and godmother to friend-zoned to blocked.

"So them naming their second kid after you? That doesn't mean diddley squat. If you're not a hot guy romantically attached to their family like a starving leech in the desert, they don't have time for you, and any public overtures to the contrary are just about making them look good. It was hard to accept, but I did. With lots of therapy from Archie. Clearly, he doesn't get nearly as many patients as he should!"

Neal absorbed her story, which made him feel all the worse. If they'd abandoned an old family friend like that, what hope did he have? But instead, he asked, "Wedding cake?"

Ruby quickly scoffed, "Don't get any ideas. I get enough of that from Granny. Things with Graham are good, but I'm not some fairy tale princess who marries the first handsome guy to look in her direction after one five minute conversation about how to avoid getting killed by some crazy person their family screwed over. I have a smidgen of integrity. And, you know, issues over the whole boyfriend eating thing. Unlike everyone else in this town, I'm trying to get my shit in order so I don't end up in some codependent clusterfuck of a marriage."

"Do you kiss your grandmother with that mouth?" Neal joked.

"Where do you think she got it from?" interjected Granny and the old woman gave him a sympathetic look.

"Life is full of disappointments. People will let you down. I loved my daughter, but she joined a human-hating werewolf cult and changed completely, and nothing I could do would bring her back. All you can do is hold onto the good memories of those you love and let go of the bad people they've become, move on, fill those empty spaces with people who make you a better person," she said, giving Ruby's arm a squeeze, "who want to be better people themselves. That _Game of Thrones_ is a great TV show, but it's not the kind of thing anyone should actually be involved with in real life. That self-destructive incestuous bullshit will fuck you up."

As Granny and Ruby left him alone, Neal considered that self-destructive incestuous bullshit.

Belle was most-likely sorting child-rearing books to take to Mommy & Me class tomorrow in a rather pathetic attempt to try and be included by Mary Margaret who would probably ignore her, even if she was nine months pregnant with octuplets, in favor of singing those stupid songs - the ones he'd caught her practicing to the blue birds that she let shit all over her classroom and on Henry's schoolwork that she probably never read anyway before giving him straight A's; and _he_ was the liar for informing her that Henry had just plagiarized a book report that August, the literary trope for the biggest liar of all time, wrote for him!

Henry, he was probably hiding cameras in bird houses outside the bedroom windows of his female classmates - if Killian's boasting was to be believed. And, of course, Emma was likely fucking Killian in her office while her dad kept a former Lost Boy in a stress position in the interrogation room for not having valid ID when he stopped him for cutting in line at the pharmacy and just happened to find a comic book in his backpack that he said was stolen, even though the guy was nineteen and illiterate because Mary Margaret never came up with an education program or housing situation for the Lost Boys who'd ended up living at Zelena's old farm until the anti-technology loons took it over and kicked them out like unwanted sons at a polygamist LDS compound.

Because that's basically what happened last week when Neal had endured fixing the department's old computer after the two "love birds" emerged from Emma's blinds-closed office with the scent of sex to taunt the kid with a half-eaten Pop Tart while David read the comic book he'd _clearly_ wanted for himself and Killian groped Emma's ass and she giggled at how adorably insatiable he was like they were in a cheap porno - like Neal wasn't right there; never mind the unfairly imprisoned young man who wasn't allowed to make a phone call or get a lawyer like they weren't even living in America anymore. And, of course, when Neal called Regina to file a complaint, he was pretty sure her heavy breathing had nothing to do with having to take the stairs because the elevator was out.

No, Storybrooke was just full of horny assholes.

The clock tower chimed, and Neal pushed his cold coffee aside. Another day wasted, hoping time would rewind and bring back the family he died to ensure their happy ending instead of this nightmare.

Neal paid his bill, adjusted his scarf, and trudged out into the biting cold and damp in search of those elusive things called _home_ and _family_ that had always seemed just out of reach.

* * *

AN: So, yeah, that was kind of depressing. Sorry.

Next up: Neal tries therapy.


	2. In Treatment

**CHAPTER TWO: IN TREATMENT**

(In which Archie has a cameo and Neal expresses more man-pain, but hopefully in a less annoying manner than Hook.)

The office was stuffy and smelled strongly of dog. In the chair opposite, Dr. Archie Hopper was cleaning his glasses for the fifth time in the fifteen minutes since Neal had sat down on the couch.

Neal hated shrinks.

He'd had to go to one when he arrived in this world, mandated by the foster system, for some evaluation what with his knowledge of modernity having stopped in the Victorian age... of what was apparently a parallel world where time was meaningless and London free of lung-cancer-causing smog and Jack the Ripper, though just his luck not the shitty workhouses where they shoved the poor and homeless.

Archie seemed nice enough, but word around town had it that he also wasn't known for keeping doctor/patient confidentiality. Still, the guy didn't seem to be drinking the personality-transplant poisoned cider like most everyone else in Storybrooke; maybe it was the whole having been a cricket thing since Granny, Ruby and their animals-as-people activists seemed pretty levelheaded. Or maybe it was that the guy seemed utterly asexual. Whatever the case, Hopper acted like he had his priorities in order rather than the general trend of making everything _not_ a priority the most important thing while ignoring everything that was pretty damn important in favor of sex, revenge, and self-pity.

Although, Neal supposed, he was guilty of self-pity at the moment. But at least it was regarding legit stuff instead of a load of crap to gain sympathy like all of the woobie "former" villains in town who seemed to like to cry rivers of entitlement over being the victims of the crimes they plotted, because if they couldn't get the spoils, then getting shafted by a smarter or just luckier bad guy somehow made them a victim... and then cleaning up that mess made them a hero. And, sure, the villains were expected to be delusional, but everyone else giving them hugs and accolades seemed like some kind of mass hysteria or Stockholm Syndrome.

Dr. Hopper cleared his throat and prompted, "You were starting to tell me about Thanksgiving?"

"Uh... yeah."

Neal rested his elbows on his knees before continuing, "Basically, what it boils down to is: I came back from the dead to watch the woman I love slather kisses all over _my mother's name_ on the douchebag they both left me for while my son shared upskirt pics with my step-grandfather-slash-step-dad under the table and the only thing anyone talked to me about was passing the mashed potatoes and if I could change Ruth's diaper, so naturally I got peed on. And you know what 'Prince Neal' calls me? 'Bagel'. Which, apparently, is a derogatory nickname that dear old Step Dad gave me! But the worst part was Henry going on and on about how _Killian_ taught him to sail _The Jolly Roger_. I mean, what the hell, man!? _I taught him that_. It's like he doesn't even remember our sailing here from Manhattan. I have _two_ good memories with my son, and he just handed it over to that bastard who ruined my life even more than it already was. And _Emma_ didn't even correct him, like she didn't notice either or maybe she just wanted me to know that even Henry likes his stepfather better!"

"And this upsets you?"

"Of course it upsets me!" Neal shouted, the winced and let out a sigh.

"I didn't even get a 'Loving Father' on my headstone, you know? I mean, I told Emma that the one thing I wanted was for Henry to know I was a good man, that I'd wanted to be a good dad, and I didn't even get that. All I got was _punishment_ , just like _every_ time I try to do something good. Doesn't matter if it's trying to get other people their happy ending or trying to get mine. I'm just the laughing stock of the universe. Thought I'd have accumulated enough good karma after centuries in Neverland for trying to help the Darlings, but I guess since they were just pawns, the intention was forfeit or something. So, I finally try to be there for Emma and Henry, to do what I didn't do the first time around that she couldn't forgive, just hoping she'd give me a chance... and I get royally screwed _again_. And even in finally getting out of that prison, I'm _still_ getting screwed.

"It's just..." Neal shook his head. "I feel like I woke up in an episode of _The Twilight Zone_. You know, the ones where everyone else is crazy, but they think they're normal... until I'm supposed to wonder if I'm the one who's crazy. Whether magic messed everyone up or it's just how they are now, I'm waiting for someone to jump out and say I've been punked, because what happened to the Emma I knew? I wanted her to be happy not... _an entirely different person_. I just... I don't understand," he lamented.

"Did being the Dark One change her that much? Or is it _him_? And why the hell did she choose that bastard? That was _before_ she went down that dark path, you know? So I can't blame it on her becoming the Dark One. And of everyone she could've chosen, she goes with the sexual predator who stalked her and tried to kill her? Who admitted to date-raping women? I mean, _what the actual fuck_ , Doc? Did I mess her up that much when I left her? Or does she just hate me that much and this is some kind of punishment? Or does she really think he's a good guy or buy into that 'the past doesn't matter' crap? Or is it like Ruby said and this timeline is corrupted and making everyone act like wackjobs and assholes?

"And how the hell am I and all these other people even here?" Neal continued. "That seems like something majorly important, but they don't even seem to care about that. Oh, well, dead people just suddenly started coming back to life. It's not like it's a fundamental law of magic or anything, you know, the breaking of which might mean something after love and time travel have apparently got ripped to shreds too that maybe someone should look into. Maybe it's the universe trying to write some magical wrongs. But maybe the Apocalypse is coming. Everyone's sure screwing like it's the End Times, but I'll tell you, most of the people here sure as shit aren't getting raptured up to anywhere acting like selfish jerks all the time."

"So, you see the people you cared about in the roll of villains now, and you're the suffering tragic hero?"

Neal groaned. "No, I just see them as _assholes_ and myself as _not an asshole_."

He let out a frustrated breath before continuing to rant, "I just don't understand why I'm the bad guy here, Doc. I haven't even killed anyone, but _they_ treat melike I'm a villain. Hook, Regina, August, they get a free pass and Emma fawns over them like... by deciding to stop fucking her over _they did her some great service_ that requires constant positive reinforcement. And I can't even get a goddamned coffee with her! Hell, I can't get my _own kid_ to spend time with me! I guess he got the 'Savior' side of the family, 'cause me and my pop, we keep getting the short end of the stick. Used to be we were tainted by the Dark One thing, but now that shouldn't apply, so maybe it's because peasants don't matter unless a fairy godmother or true love's kiss says so. Or maybe it just takes The Charmings stamp of approval, though hell if I know why anything they approve of should be a glowing recommendation when near as I can tell, they're awful parents, terrible rulers, and about as genuinely heroic as Robin Hood is actually honorable."

"You don't think much of Emma's parents then."

"Why the hell should I? Their family motto of 'we will always find each other' didn't apply to me and my kid as far as they were concerned. So, naming their kid after me is grandstanding bullshit. I mean, did they ever even apologize to _you_ for some half-assed investigation into your so-called death? My guess is no, right? Instead they decided the guy who _tortured_ you was a hero just for being creepily in love with their daughter. But, hey, Prince Charming gets off on kissing dead women, and Snow White's cool with crushing her true love's heart to cast an utterly pointless curse instead of taking five minutes to think that maybe it's a bad idea to trust a mysterious stranger allegedly trapped behind a door that allegedly only the pure of heart can access and let her in even though she got a blackened heart for murdering someone like, a couple of months earlier. I mean, okay, I got tricked into doing something pretty stupid, but I never claimed to be the epitome of virtue and wisdom. And did I even get a 'thank you' for that memory potion after I got back from my apparently well-deserved imprisonment? No, all I get is them saying they're going to call me 'Baelfire' now so as not to confuse their sweet little princey-poo."

Facing twisting into an expression of disgust, Neal admitted, "And, you know, I'd be okay with it if Emma was really happy. I'd put up with all of her family's crazy shit if she was like the happy Emma I knew, that _really_ smiled and laughed, not this Pod Person who's so willing to surrender part of herself, lose parts of who she is, in order to believe that her pet pirate is a hero who truly loves her. _Truly loves her, my ass._ Maybe true love magic is ninety-nine percent delusional belief, or maybe Merlin just happened to dragon fart a rainbow at the right time, I dunno, but if magic can't make you love someone, something sure as hell has to, because that's insane. But then, if Regina can true love's kiss away a curse with Henry after bragging that she isn't sorry she raped and murdered people to get him and would do it all over again, and the whole time travel and death stuff has been disproved, then I can't say I actually put a lot of faith in magic! And that's _before_ Emma broke the timeline, 'cause I know I don't remember that new version of Henry's book with _Princess Leia_ and _Prince Charles_ ," he scoffed.

"But apparently Emma does now. And apparently she thinks true love is telling someone they're perfect all the time, that their mistakes and _intentionally harmful acts_ don't matter. I mean, I'm not the shrink here, but it's like she's willingly putting on blindfolds whenever something bad about her so-called soulmate comes out, because 'happy ending' and somehow that makes him a hero and their relationship the most perfect expression of love since her parents got married on her grandmother's deathbed after having a total of probably no more than five actual conversations not about Regina trying to kill them, because I guess that's how it's supposed to work in our world. Hell, it's probably better off that Charming's mom hasn't come back, 'cause she sounds like a real nice lady who'd probably just end up having a stroke after finding out she sacrificed her life so her son's true love could have a kid she'd fuck over into becoming the ultimate personification of evil just to spare herself having a less than perfect child. Cause it's all about perfect with them and now together with Hook they got Emma drinking the Kool Aid.

"I mean, Hook's just enabling her having this 'my shit doesn't stink' attitude by praising her, saying she did great stuff she _didn't do_ , saying _her_ mistakes don't matter, and then piling on top of it that she's responsible for him getting happiness and staying good and he's the reason she overcame being the Dark One. Which he inserts into _every_ conversation, by the way, as if that's actually something to be proud of, when it's practically holding her hostage and emotionally blackmailing her into some sense of gratitude, which as far as I can tell, is his side of their relationship from the very beginning, yet she fell for it _hook_ , line and sinker while giving _me_ shit for calling her lie detector superpower a load of crap!?" Neal finished, out of breath.

"So, you feel like there's a double standard," said Dr. Hopper.

"Hell yeah, I do!"

Unable to sit still, Neal stood up and began to pace.

"I thought what we had was _real_ and _true_ , Doc. I know I fucked up by leaving her, and I chickened out of coming here when August told me she'd arrived, but I didn't _know_ we had a kid. And I only figured she'd never forgive me 'cause she thought I sent her to jail. And _then_ finding out ten years later she never got the money? I can't forgive myself," he groaned, "but I thought I'd at least earned some points with Emma. I thought we could at least be friends, have a chance at being some kind co-parenting family even if it was too late for anything romantic. I tried to fight for that, for her, for Henry, but none of it seems to matter. That I'm sorry doesn't mean anything while _Killian_ , and hell, Regina, August, all of 'em, aren't sorry for anything they did to hurt her or Henry like it's all some Candide 'best of all possible worlds' crap where the end justifies the means and gets everyone forgiveness. _Except me_. I'm eternally damned for leaving her when I believed she'd be taken care of while the dick who took all her money and called the cops is her best friend. Not coming here when she did or when she broke the Curse is apparently some massive betrayal, but if I'd shown up before she broke it, I'd likely have driven her away, and if I came after, she was already down some magic hat portal being seduced by my step-dad, so what the hell would it have mattered? Either way I'd lose, too little too late.

"I was too little too late in Neverland," Neal growled, "because I got screwed over, even though I could have saved Henry while Hook was leading them in circles with their heads up their asses. I'm just 'some person' and I'm sure Pan was having a big old laugh when I thought he was Henry and told him I'd always be there for him. Just one more laugh at old Baelfire's expense. But hey, why not have my kid's evil aunt kill me so I can not even get a last minute with him and have my sacrifice be completely meaningless just so Emma can go back in time with go old Step Dad for more adventures so they can insert themselves into her parents meet cute and have everyone say their love is destiny while I'm just worm food."

Fighting tears, Neal wondered, "Does she really think some magical destiny bullshit says they're meant to be? Was she just so fucking flattered that he declared her his happy ending that she let herself be brainwashed? Because this woman, she's not the Emma I remember, _that I loved_ ," he angrily declared, raking a hand through his hair. "And the man I knew for centuries sure as shit doesn't want the _real_ Emma as his happy ending or he'd acknowledge that she has flaws and treat with her actual respect instead of this manipulative, controlling, rape-culturey bullshit! Instead, they act like they're a couple of angels who can do no wrong and aren't responsible for anything, like they're codependent creep-fest of a relationship is some beautiful carbon copy of her parents or something, and that's _not_ healthy, man, never mind that her parents sure as shit are not role models. And even if Snow White and Prince Charming _were_ as perfect as that book made 'em out to be, that's _not_ real happiness either. But magic says so, end of story, I guess!"

Neal concluded by throwing his hands in the air in frustration and then slumping back onto the couch.

"You're right," Dr. Hopper calmly acknowledged. "Failing to acknowledge the bad parts of someone's personality or past, or to dismiss it as unimportant to your relationship in the present is a poor foundation for any relationship. As is assigning them qualities they don't actually possess in order to make them fit to your standards. And trusting in magic to never lead you astray to the point of ignoring that it can be at the mercy of those who wield it as much as we can be victims of it is certainly dangerous as well. That I can say from personal experience. One should never trust that something is inherently good or without fault just because others have deemed it so."

Neal snorted. "Yeah, if the Blue Fairy can make back alley deals to get the Dark Curse cast when everyone's been told she's the ultimate good, and if _Merlin himself_ decided to rid the universes of an all-powerful Dark One by damning human souls _and_ for the hell of it gave mortals the power to use magic to alter the course of history in multiple worlds, how the hell does _anyone_ trust in the infallibility of magic?"

Shaking his head, Neal ranted on, "And, you know, I used to even sort of like Disney movies. Of course, that was before I found out the guy used some magic quill to make himself rich and famous by turning every fairy tale into some chauvinist ideal where the handsome stranger gets to molest some sleeping lady he's never met and instantly live happily ever with her, and maybe that's why Hook is oh so sexy!" he exclaimed in disgust.

"And how the hell does the whole time thing even work?" Neal continued in frustrated bewilderment. "Her parents story has been around for centuries, but only up to them getting hitched part, and it's oh so convenient that Walt kicks it just at the right time for that Isaac tool to take over, but that's still decades off between then and when Emma was born. And then take John, Michael, and Wendy. That wasn't _this_ London. So, Pan transported them from that story realm out of time to this one, which means you can jump into a timeless universe and out of it to the 'real world' at any time. Or can you only go forward? But then Regina got that poisoned apple from the past. So, why didn't Zelena just steal a magic quill and bleed Emma for some ink? Or was that hat some super special unduplicatable thing? And if that magic bean was supposed to take me here, how did I end up _there_ in a world that is _clearly_ not without magic? I mean, it makes no fucking sense! It's like Merlin and the Blue Fairy made up some bullshit magical laws for the hell of it and everyone just decided when they failed to apply to just pretend not to notice it!"

"Sadly," sighed the former cricket unhappily, "the scientific method did not exist in the Enchanted Forest, Neal. Our people are prone toward taking things on faith rather than using critical thinking skills to reason out whether or not magic _or love_ actually functions the way they have been told. I would wager that much of what our people take as fact is either only partially true or outright wrong. I fear Merlin took great umbrage with that fact, as have the various Authors. The failure to thoroughly examine the cause and ramifications of the Resurrection Crisis is just the latest proof of that."

Neal grimaced. Ah, yes, the Resurrection Crisis, if by "crisis" you meant people shrugging it off like just one more crazy surprise out of the magical fuckbarrel that was Storybrooke.

It started a few months ago with no particular rhyme or reason. On the first day, Regina's father found himself wandering down Main Street at precisely 8:15 in the morning and was nearly hit by Emma, late for work in the Bug. Also returned was Zelena, the Mayor answering a call from Dr. Whale while Emma was trying to figure out who the confused old man was... taking him to the Sheriff's Station where she found Graham inspecting his old office and trying to figure out why a grappling hook and gauntlets were hanging beside his jacket.

As the days passed, others returned.

Johanna walked down from the clock tower in a daze, giving Belle a fright, at the same time Marian was found wandering in the woods by Little John.

Some kids discovered Lancelot splashing in the middle of the city park lake while Sneezey found Stealthy standing at the sunglasses rack in the Dark Star trying to figure out why his ears and nose had shrunk.

Eva returned taking a nap on the alter of the Convent's chapel while her husband just showed up at a campsite, where he was easily entertained by a BIC lighter until the proper authorities - such as they were - showed up to fetch him.

Walsh came to in the pet shop's kennel scratching at flea bites while Charming's brother appeared by the gorge where Cruella awoke down bellow, the pair hitchhiking into town - before the latter was locked up in the Asylum with Zelena, because even if this town forgave murderers without cause, at least they were still attempting to lock of the certifiable ones with legit insanity defenses (though maybe that was really all up to revenge and not wanting to explain why Maleficent took the crazy flapper's world-hopping ride to Camelot).

There was even James' slutty mistress and giant genocidist who came to in the bean field before joining the prince in trying to create their own little fiefdom among the anti-tech rural folk with the former King George who'd never been arrested or charged for killing Billy - who awoke in his old tow truck, his overalls still covered in blood.

And apparently, the guy Cora killed to transform into Archie appeared on this very couch one day while the Doc was sorting through his file cabinet and carrying the sack of groceries he'd been taking home when he got murdered and body-morphed.

The list went on, most of the people nameless supernumeraries (a large number of them former flying monkeys, including one very angry group who arrived together at The Cannery). Though not _all_ of the dead had returned, and there were a variety of theories on that, mostly settling on the possibility that those who'd returned had died before their time due to meddling by Isaac (not resurrected, thankfully), The Apprentice, or a previous Author (and had to be people born in the Enchanted Forest for this magic to apply). Which maybe meant the universe or magic or whatever was trying to re-balance itself, though that didn't make it any less troubling, and it just seemed foolish to decide that was the reason because it put the best positive spin on things. And, you know, because _happy endings_.

Sometimes Neal had wonder if maybe it was all that _none of them_ were _really_ real being from some crazy-ass magic world, though that would lead to an existential crisis of bullshit proportions he wasn't quite ready to tackle at present.

Whatever the case, they'd all appeared at random, no one with any memory of the after life.

Accept for Neal.

He'd been in the Vault of the Dark One, which wasn't exactly what he'd been expecting when he opened his eyes... such as it was being without real physical form. The best part was when he felt the curse leave his father... followed immediately by the _worst_ of feeling it wrap around Emma's soul. For a brief time he'd thought maybe he could communicate with her - as he hadn't been able to his dying father - and that the love they had shared would somehow break through realms. It hadn't, though.

It was like hitting his head against a brick wall and expecting things to change. Expecting _her_ to change.

As was every day since he'd come back.

"I just want to know why she doesn't seem to care about me at all," Neal sighed, despondent. He was on the verge of tears, but he wouldn't cry. He felt like he'd lost the ability in Neverland, cried an ocean full until there was nothing left. And then these past years in The Vault... "I'd rather have hate than this... apathy."

Grimacing, Dr. Hopper relayed, "All I can offer you, Neal, is that I know Emma has been oft times desperate to please her parents - as much as she has been to rebel against them, particularly since the revelation about her magic. If I had to guess, I would say the man she chose and the nature of that relationship has managed to satisfy both of those while also attempting to fit into the acceptable social norms of the world in which we were all born after being raised in a very unstable situation that did not instill in her a great deal of self-esteem nor a healthy understanding of interpersonal relationship dynamics."

After a pause, he expanded, "You've spent more of your life in this world than the other, and with _real_ experience and memories, Neal. It's easy to forget that, outward appearances to the contrary, Storybrooke was created as a... fractured emulation of the Enchanted Forest, a world defined by extreme socioeconomic and gender inequality. In large part, Regina's reign of terror was a counterrevolution, if a self-centered one, against the patriarchal society that had destroyed her mother to the point of Cora having to play by the same rules that ruined her in order to get her daughter into a place of power. Instead of seeking an egalitarian society after gaining power, Regina simply reassigned herself into the masculine gender role, committing warfare atrocities and sexual assault against prisoners to demonstrate her authority. Equality of the sexes was simply not something in the vocabulary any more than one would contemplate the Magna Carta, abolition, ethical treatment of animals, or labor unions. And that has carried over to this society. We have technology and memories containing social awareness of how this world functions, but they are false constructs at odds with our true selves. One might think of it as an Id versus Ego situation in absence of a Superego. This world is reason. That world is emotion. But there is no... intermediary to reconcile them in any coherently functional way."

"So, you're saying that having two sets of memories has fucked people up? And Regina giving Emma those memories...?"

The tweed-jacketed man shifted uncomfortable at the profanity, but replied, "I suspect it plays a role, yes. When the mind is... divided or at odds in such a way, it must find a way to cope, to _stay sane_ , and those coping mechanisms are not always healthy. I have tried to help the people of Storybrooke, but... I think it takes a well-ordered mind to come out of something so psychologically traumatizing with one's better nature in tact. It's simply unfortunate that such minds seem limited. I would attribute a certain amount of that to inbreeding."

"Yeah, unfortunate. Not exactly a strong enough word, Doc, though you're probably writing about the kissing cousins," he retorted and let out a sardonic snort. "I don't know how much more of this I can take, waiting for a change. If this is just how things are gonna be to keep everyone from going completely off the deep end short of just wiping out half their memories again, then I'm waiting for a day that's never gonna come, and that's... it's _beyond_ depressing, Doc."

"Then maybe you need to make a change, Neal. If the people around you won't," Dr. Hopper suggested.

Neal grimaced. And how was he supposed to do that? He couldn't leave It wasn't as easy to start over with nothing now as it had been when he'd gone to Canada. Robin Hood had thrown away all of his identity stuff from his fake birth certificate to his safe deposit box key, because his old man didn't even consider Henry might want anything of his dad's (not that he seemed to, anyway). Plus, Neal was probably a person of interest in Tamara's disappearance, assuming that was even her real name. He didn't exactly have a squeaky-clean recording for which he'd gone to ground in Canada 'til that warrant expired, so that was suspicious right there. And even if he did try to start over, Killian had taken all the money from his wallet and maxed out his credit cards on leather jackets, Internet porn, and Netflix pirate movies - because he claimed he was sure it was what Neal would have wanted him to do.

But most importantly, magic followed him wherever he went. Eventually, it caught up. So, he was stuck. He couldn't leave, but he couldn't bare to stay. But he had to come up with _something_ , because he just couldn't keep going on like this.

The clock tower chimed and Dr. Hopper shut his notepad. "Well, that's it for today," cheerfully concluded. "I think we've made some real progress here!"

Then again, Neal thought, maybe Archie Hopper was just as crazy as the rest of them!

* * *

AN: So, Ruby offered her bad Xerox copy alternate universe theory. Archie's now suggested a psychoanalytical hypothesis. Which one is right? Are they both at play? Is it something else? Also, if you were wondering, Ruby's first boyfriend Peter is back from the dead, but being traumatized by being eaten by Red, said they should see other people (just as Billy has moved on, because a mouse and werewolf? That would be just silly!). Some of the undead and their current living situation will be mentioned later. Of those who aren't, you can come up with your own ideas. I see Johanna trying to organize the peasantry for an underground revolution should they return to FTL. And if you're wondering why certain people didn't come back? Don't try to assign any logic to it. It's a bullshit plot device... Or is it? Yeah, it is. I think. Unless I change my mind later and retcon everything. It could totally happen!

Next up: Neal and Emma finally cross paths.


	3. Garden of Assholes

**CHAPTER THREE: GARDEN OF ASSHOLES**

(In which Neal stops being a doormat and wonderful things can happen when you sow seeds of distrust in a garden of assholes.)

Neal was loading his suitcase into the trunk of his father's car when he heard her approach, the crunch of her boots easily discernible on the pot-hole-infested parking lot of Granny's. He took a deep breath before turning, having to steel himself to look at her, all adorably confused and pissed. Less adorable, all things considered, her small baby bump that had recently started to show, stretching at the front of her gray top that showed off the additional curves of her expanded bosom... and that ship wheel pendant necklace that she always wore now, that he'd felt ill when her mother had tittered at Thanksgiving had to mean her meeting Killian was fate - like Neal wasn't even there, like Belle's words about the keychain meant nothing; and Emma didn't wear it anymore, anyway, had maybe even thrown it out or buried it at the bottom of that box of hers, and he hadn't asked, because he didn't want to know if it was the former, that he really did matter that little in the end.

"Henry said you're leaving. And that you're literally just going to forget about all of this? All of _us?_ "

"Yeah."

"And you didn't think to inform me?" Emma huffed, hands on her hips.

Neal shrugged and shut the trunk. "I didn't think you'd care, really, since you forgot so easily last time around. Now, if you'll excuse me, I promised to drop some stuff off with Mulan."

"Oh. So, you're running off on your girlfriend too, leaving her some junk on your way out. How familiar."

Neal curled his hands into fists. He was done with this. He was so done. He had been patient for so long, since even before the resurrection thing, and he just couldn't _take_ it anymore.

"You know what? Stop pretending you give a shit, Emma," he snapped, causing her to startle at his unusually cold tone. "I got conned by a puppet. I fucked up. I didn't come look for you when the Curse broke because I knew you'd hate me, so why give you more grief? It's not like I knew we had a kid. But I came here as soon as I knew about Henry. I'm sorry I got shot. I'm sorry I died. I'm sorry that I tried my damnedest to make up for all the pain I caused you, but considering your confession in Neverland, my being dead should have done that. So, maybe you're pissed about my _no longer being dead_. Well, sorry to inconvenience your perfect happy ending with a sex offender."

Glaring, Emma shot back, "Sex offender? Says the guy who got an underage girl pregnant. You're the one who should have spent eleven months behind bars, Neal. And you're the one who keeps leaving, so what do you expect? Was I supposed to be pining for you _for thirteen years_? And Killian has _always_ been there for me! He has never _betrayed_ me! I'm his _happy ending_! So, excuse me for being happy - _like you said you wanted!_ "

" _Happy with someone who was good enough for you_! _Who gave a shit about your happy ending and Henry's even if it didn't include him!"_ Neal growled, "Which is the only fucking reason _Killian_ is anywhere _near_ you. Always there only since he decided that he wanted to seduce you into being his new pirate wench instead of just raping you like the rest of his conquests. Or was Mulan bullshitting that he threatened to rape you after calling you useless and leaving you to starve to death? _But, hey, maybe you get off on being threatened with sexual assault at sword-point and being head-slammed into walls_. If I'd known you liked abusive stalkery pirate shit, I'd have just thrown you up against the masthead of the _Jolly Roger_ while my father was dying from being poisoned by your boyfriend and fucked you until you screamed 'Ahoy, Captain'!"

The crack of her palm against his cheek felt numb. Neal barely registered it and smile ruefully at her seething, " _Fuck you, Neal!_ "

He scoffed. "Yeah, _fuck me_ , Emma. Fuck me for thinking I could ever earn your forgiveness or your love back or even just friendship." His lips quirked sardonically. "I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody. Or, at least, that's what I thought when I fell in love with you. But I get it, I screwed up and I don't get a second chance. Sure, even fucking Pinocchio got that, but I'm just your no-account, curse-contrived sperm-donor, some fleeting stupid teenage crush that's nothing compared to the all-consuming passionate true love soulmate romance you've got with Captain Jack Swallows, right?

"I'm _sorry_ ," Neal sneered, "that we had a _real life relationship_ with an emotional connection and mundane problems instead of a _fairy tale_ one with lots of sex in between magical bullshit problems. I'm sorry I ever thought you wanted something _real_ instead of living in a fantasy world. So, fuck me for that. I get it. I get that around here, in whatever insane world I dropped back into, reality doesn't measure up. After all, in the real world, unapologetic murderers who decide they want happiness in the form of a regular fuck with one of the good guys would get their asses thrown in prison instead of getting instant redemption and endless hero sex. In the _real world_ , if you gave your life for someone you loved, you'd at least get a fitting epitaph goddamned cup of coffee for it. Instead, I'm the villain who doesn't deserve a happy ending. I guess _Killian_ was right about that after all. He's the hero and I'm the villain in this story.

"And he won you like a prize, just like he said he would," Neal shook his head in dismay, "So, I guess, fuck me too for not trying to win your forgiveness like a reward for not punching old ladies or whatever it is he claims he doesn't do anymore that requires your constant validation. My bad for trying to give you space, for trying to put your needs first. Shoulda known better than to even bother trying to get back to you, right? I mean, at least tell me you didn't fuck him in my _home_ in Neverland."

Emma sputtered, furious and indignant, "How the hell can you even accuse me of that!?"

Neal gave her scathing look. "Oh, I'm sorry, was that _before_ you decided to shit all over anything that meant something to me? I guess you were sharing your passionate tryst in Tinkerbell's treehouse then. Doesn't really matter _where_ you did it, though, just that _I_ was trying to save our son while you took a breather from walking in circles with your head up your ass to let the guy who'd left you and everyone to die the day before get in your pants, _and you think you're some great hero?_ You swoon at his praise for defeating Pan, _like my father killing himself had nothing to do with it, right?_ But who needs _facts_ when you're The Savior? You can just co-opt anyone's sacrifices, like your asshole blowup pirate sex-doll can co-opt other people's pasts and acts of heroism, and you'll just believe anything he says, so long as he's wagging an eyebrow and grabbing your ass. So, fuck me for trying to be honorable instead of in your face with false flattery, sexual overtures, and outright lies. _My mistake_ that you actually _wanted_ me to be a two-faced pervert. Because I sure as hell can't figure any _other_ reason you'd want that asshole unless you really are _just that stupid_."

"You're the one who's acting like the stupid asshole here, Neal!" Emma sneered, her eyes flashing, magic tingling at the tips of her fingers, making the bug zapper hanging from the porch fizzle.

"Yeah, _I'm_ the asshole," Neal scoffed, non-plused by the magical display, whether it was intentional for intimidation or the usual temper tantrum magic, the sort her little sister was getting quite "good" at. "You're just the one who didn't even bother to mourn me _when I died for you. For our son_. You couldn't wait to throw yourself at Killian, get all dressed up like some high school production of _Grease_ for some fuck date _. I really enjoyed your mother's scrapbook at Thanksgiving, by the way_. I'm just surprised it doesn't include your 'meet cute', you know, where he was _hiding under the bodies of people he helped murder_ before you climbed a giant phallic symbol together. But I guess that's easier to forgive and forget than me trying to get you to your family, huh? He gives up his nautical equivalent of a rape van and assaults you on your doorstep, but, hey, he calls it an act of love. I give up my life and waste moments I might have had with my son _if you'd even let me see him_ getting you that memory potion in the first place, and _he_ gets all the credit? Story of my fucking life, though, right? I try to help other people get their happy ending, and I get fucked up the ass while the villains get all the glory.

"But you know the saddest part?" Neal uttered. "When I first met him, I thought Killian was a good guy, that he'd be my friend, maybe even the father figure I lost in my actual old man - 'til I found out he was a lying douchebag who sold my ass out to save his own. And when I met you? I thought you were a good person and I left so you could be a hero. Instead you became a selfish, pathetic jerk, just like him."

"You're pathetic, Neal," Emma snapped. "Excuse me for having moved on and found Tallahassee _without you_."

"Yeah," he responded, coldly, "you found it. And in spite of it all, I'll always want what's best for you. Even when that means my absence. Just, this time around, it might be best for me too."

Neal walked around to the driver's side, then paused, shaking his head, and considered. "You know, maybe the saddest part of all is actually that the woman I loved doesn't seem to exist anymore - or maybe she never did. Maybe this was always who you were meant to be, and the amazing, kind, generous woman I wanted to spend my life with was just the better half of you, minus that dark potential, and the _whole_ Emma Swan's exactly what your parents feared you'd be, only they're too deep in their own delusion to notice that you took that potential and embraced it. 'Cause you don't need to be the Dark One to be evil. You don't need to kill people or destroy worlds to be dark. You just have to be an asshole, Emma.

"But hey," he amended, opening the car door, "if it gets you wet laying on your back for your heroic sailor boy in the same bed where he fucked my mother, who am I to stand in your way? Just be careful that he doesn't hand Henry over to the next child abusing psychopath for shore leave to get rum and whores."

Neal left her standing there, got in the car and peeled out of the lot without looking back.

* * *

AN: Captain Jack Swallows. That movie never gets old. I think OUAT is turning into its sequel: _Epic Failure_. Neal quotes _On the Waterfront_ if you didn't notice, the 'Ahoy, Captain' was a dig at _How I Met Your Mother_ , and his line about wanting the best for Emma is a poem by Beau Taplin called _What's Best_. "Wonderful things can happen when you sow seeds of distrust in a garden of assholes" belongs to the writers of _Justified_ and Raylan Givens.

Next up: Emma takes a nap. About as interesting as it sounds. Sorry in advance.


	4. Dizzy Up the Girl

**CHAPTER FOUR: DIZZY UP THE GIRL**

(In which Emma is dumb and dizzy and not much else happens.)

Confusion and furry battled for dominance as Emma was left in Granny's parking lot, trying to make sense of everything Neal had said. It boiled down to Milah being his mother, but that made no sense. Why hadn't he told her that after their encounter with Hook in New York? Why hadn't Killian told her in Neverland when he was waxing poetic about Neal's artwork? Well, it _was_ a bit incestuous, she had to admit. Perhaps not quite as unsettling morally speaking as hooking up with one's wife's murderer, but this was Storybrooke, the Enchanted Forest in modernized microcosm, and when in Rome...

Really, where did Neal get off pinning this all on her? He'd left her to rot in jail _pregnant_. He'd ignored that post card. He chose to use dark magic without thinking of the price! And, okay, so had she, but _she_ didn't really have a better choice with the time travel or the Dark One thing thanks to _his_ father!

Barking startled Emma out of her fuming and she turned to find Pongo dashing through the front yard of the Inn, Dr. Hopper being yanked forward. He let go of the leash, but barreled into her, jabbing her rather painfully in the hip with his umbrella before spinning them in an awkward dance to keep them both upright.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Emma!" Archie apologized. "It's that darn stray cat! Are you all right?"

Emma glared and rubbed her leg. "Well, you nearly dislocated my hip, what do you think?" she told him snappishly and started to walk away, but her leg was tingly and she stumbled.

"Are you sure you're all right?" asked the shrink.

"I'm fine," she grunted, trying to push away, but stumbled again, her vision suddenly swimming with a wave of vertigo and nausea. "Shit."

"Oh, gosh. Why don't I help you into the parlor. Sit down a bit? You wouldn't want to risk falling in your condition!"

Emma found she couldn't really argue, hard as it was to even stay upright, and so she allowed Archie to escort her up the wooden steps and into the parlor with its Mommy & Me clutter.

"I'll just get you some water," Archie told her while easing Emma into a chair.

She wanted to tell him not to bother, but uttered a "thanks" while lowering her head between her legs to try to stop the spinning...

* * *

AN: Emma, always over doing it. Archie, ever the bumbling but kindhearted doormat.

Next up: Mulan!


	5. Outcasts

**CHAPTER FIVE: OUTCASTS**

(In which Mulan and Neal drink to their mutual misery.)

"To Outcasts."

"To Outcasts," Mulan agreed and clinked her glass of ale with Neal's.

"I hope you don't think I'm taking the coward's way out," Neal said after swallowing his beer down. "I don't want you or Marian or Graham to feel like I'm abandoning the cause... whatever exactly that amounts to. Previously dead and recently immigrated citizens of the Enchanted Forest stick together and all that."

"We do what we must to find happiness," Mulan returned. "If it wasn't for Marian needing help adjusting and having little support in her custody battle, I would consider leaving this town. There is little that it offers me but to see those I once considered friends defiled into the worst versions of themselves and call it the fruits of true love. Though there is Internet porn."

The statement, delivered in such a deadpan way made Neal crack up. He bet if they'd been kids together, they'd have been good friends, both trying to be warriors, to be what people said they couldn't, he because of his father, she because of her sex. They'd been friends, if for a short while, found a connection that he hadn't with Aurora and Philip and Robin, and it seemed the same for Mulan... or, at least, after Philip and Aurora were reunited, anyway. The two monarchs had thrown Mulan's loyalty and love away - and the thief _literally_ threw the pieces of Neal's life in the garbage. Great friends they'd chosen to rely upon, friends who betrayed or forgot them in the end.

"You'll always be my friend," Neal told her, "even if I don't remember that friendship."

"And I will always consider you a friend, should you find your way back to the man I have grown fond of in a completely platonic way," Mulan replied.

"Hey," Neal mused, "maybe one day Aurora will walk by your Taekwondo studio while you're all hot and sweaty, and you'll pull your hair out of a bun while turning your head-"

"You watch too much Internet porn."

"Yeah, well, it's lonely being back from the dead for those of us without wolf fetishes," snarked Neal. "Still, I think you two are meant for each other."

"And you and Emma are meant for each other. And Marian and Robin are meant for each other. At least, different versions of them before this counterfiet happy ending. If only they could see what we see..."

"Sucks to be perceptive, doesn't it?"

The clock tower chimed, and Neal grimaced. It was time to go.

Mulan surprised him as he stood with a hug and a peck on the cheek.

"You have the heart of a great warrior and the soul of a poet. You are the most honorable man I have met, Baelfire, and I know you will be again on whatever path you choose."

If only honor brought happiness, he thought. Sadly, that had never seemed to work out for him...

* * *

AN: I know Taekwondo is Korean, not Chinese, but Mulan is also a real historical figure, not a cartoon, so fuck all you all if you have a problem with it!

Next up: All you Hook-haters, the pirate mascot is up to bat, and he's got lots to ponder about life as a hero, but his internal monologue gets rudely interrupted. And what is Cora up to?


	6. Crazy Stupid Luv

**CHAPTER SIX: CRAZY STUPID LUV**

(In which Killian grumbles about in-laws, Emma flips out, and Cora is up to something.)

Killian sat at the counter in Granny's, pretending to have a pleasant laugh with Mary Margaret after failing to polish off his Irished up coffee before the brunet pushed her insanely large pram into the establishment and volunteered him to help untangle some yarn so she could work on her crochet lessons from Granny, making booties or something for the baby, which was a lost cause given they all looked like they were for Ursula's octopus babies.

To be honest, he'd stopped listening to the words coming out of her mouth after it veered into the self-righteous over the latest "with the best of intentions" fiasco in the Charming family that had something to do with her un-deceased mother, Charming's evil twin, and the latest hubub at the hick forest compound where old King George liked to rile up the crazies and disenchanted lesser royals with conspiracy theories in the hopes of carrying out a coupe against Regina and The Charmings - which was itself crazy, because who would actually _want_ to run this bumfuck town? There was a time when Killian had enjoyed playing the anarchist revolutionary, fighting against the establishment to undermine an authoritarian monarchy ruled by a hypocritical king, but, well... it all seemed pretty riddiculous when they were living in a town the size of most feudal fiefdoms to have the royals squabbling over which cul'du sacs belonged to which kingdom, if they should really be using "American coinage", and not a single one of them even considering they ought to have elections for anything after all of the shit they flung at Regina after the Dark Curse broke for _appointing herself Mayor_.

So, of course, he would get dragged into the "right side" of the familial fiasco as he did every one since Neverland, regardless of what he actually thought about these people. Because, of course, if he'd sat Emma down on that dock and told her that he thought her parents were a couple of hypocritical, slow-witted pillocks who didn't deserve forgivess for being uttelry selfish and incompetant in every single thing they'd ever done their entire lives... well... it was unlikely that he'd have gotten laid.

And bugger all did he have to endure a _lot_ to get some Savior tale. Quite frankly, Snow White, or Mary Margaret or whatever she wanted to go by at any given moment, was probably about seventy-five percent of that "lot".

The only thing worse than having to infiltrate one of those meetings to gather intel was being stuck in the middle of Emma's mother being a selfish, insensitive, dimwitted bint whining about her family troubles. _Why didn't her mommy want to spend time with her little Princess Ruthie?_ Ugh. _Was she so disappointed in the leader and mother Snow had turned out to be that she didn't invite her along on her "Mother Theresa" (whoever that was) mission?_ And, of course, _Why did her daddy spend more time with Regina's daddy than her? Was he disappointed in her?_

Killian wanted to shout at her _, "Of course they are, you stupid cow! You're a delusional, self-righteous, idiot who couldn't even run this town for a day without fucking it up and whose children would be taken away by those foster care people if you lived in the real world!"_

He didn't, though. He just listened to her sappy phone conversation with Charming about picking up diapers and making tacos later. _TeeHee!_

The pirate threw up a little in his mouth.

He really _really_ hated Emma's parents.

"Sucking up to the mother-in-law?" a voice dripping in amusement drew Killian from his brooding and he scowled at Cora, who'd sidled up unnoticed. He'd always hated how she did that. The Crocodile had probably taught her, since even without his dark powers and with that limp he could still ooze into a room like carbon monoxide - one of those pesky chemicals that if you didn't vent a power plant properly could build up and render maintenance workers unconscious or dead, resulting in lawsuits - not that Snow White seemed to care about _that_ , because if her tits didn't drip toxic gases, then it had nothing to do with an electrical grid. _He'd_ had the sense to get a book on at the library, and he didn't even have fake memories of how this world worked!

"What do you want, witch?" he grunted while giving Cora a proper stink eye.

"Oh, playing hero has made you so judgmental," she clicked her tongue. "But still woefully unobservant, I see. Always lost in your own little world. Oblivious to the dangers lurking all around."

"The only lurking dangers here are that brat and you. Playing the loving grandmother hasn't made you any less unwelcomingly intrusive, Cora."

"I was never pretending to be otherwise, _Killian_. I know what I am, heart or no heart. You, my dear, are just a pathetic pretender."

"Emma says otherwise. She says I'm a _hero_ ," Killian boasted, puffing his chest up, which just drew a harsh laugh from the old bat.

"And you think you're one because of that? Who's more the fool? The fool or the fool who follows him?"

With that, she plucked a take-away bag from the counter and sashayed out the door.

Killian scowled. _Crazy Mills women_.

"Oh, I know!" Mary Margaret cooed. "Leia _Hope_!"

Killian forced a smile and a cheerful, "I'm sure Emma will love that," while resisting the urge to throttle her.

If it wasn't insulting enough that the two barmy royals named their second child for _Neal_ after betraying the lad as surely as Killian ever had - only _villains_ were supposed to be that duplicious and _of course_ aware of it, which just made their clueless "we did a good thing because we are awesome and blameless" routine an insult to villains _and_ heroes everywhere - Snow _Not So Bright_ was meddling in naming _his_ child. The nerve of that nosey, meddling, pea-brained woman!

If Killian had listen to Mary Margaret prattle on about "Little Prince Charles or Princess Leia" for much longer...

There was no way in _hell_ either of those names would do. First and foremost because _Snow White_ was in the habit of "squeeing" over them, a descriptive that was apparently meant for girls Henry's age, and Killian would have no child of his named by a woman with even less emotional depth and maturity than her eldest daughter, who had _actual childhood trauma_ to justify it.

Well, all right, so Snow White had failed to kill some poor sap as a tot to save her mother whom she spent the rest of her life trying to emulate as some perfect martyr to the cause of perfection because her lying sack of shit father never sat her down to tell her _, "Now, sweetiepie, it's not that I was delayed at a very important diplomatic summit that your mother organized and would have wanted me to attend as her last legacy even if it meant missing her funeral. Really, it's that your mother was a horrible person who drove my true love to villainy after publicly shaming her twice, once for political gain, and twice just for a good laugh, which I only found out after I had married her and you were born after a good ten years of her keeping from getting pregnant by duplicitous means until I finally got fed up with it and slipped a fertility potion into her wine - and I was still hoping for a son. And it's not as though you know what real parent-child relationships are like, anyway, what with us living in separate wings of this giant castle and you being raised by that servant woman you treated like gutter trash."_

Regardless, and childhood trauma or not, the woman was _so_ dumb. She didn't even know when _witner_ was. Unless, during one of his longer stays in Neverland between supply runs, the Enchanted Forest had been replaced by that _Game of Thrones_ world or something.

But her mental incompetence aside, Killian was not going to have any child of his named for a big-eared inbreeder who'd betrayed a beautiful princess to shag a horse-faced nobody, and furthermore let his Queen mummy steal his regal birthrite by not stepping down from the throne at a sensible age of somewhere under 100. _Or_ some mouthy tart who wore pastries on her head and made out with her own brother before marrying a pirate. No daughter of _his_ would marry a pirate. No way in _hell_ was he going to be as stupid as Charming! Of course, if the potion _he_ slipped into Emma's hot chocolate was worth the doubloons he'd paid for it, they'd have a son, anyway, and he would be named _Liam_. Liam Killian Jo-

Killian let out a mental "bugger" as a knitting needle flew past his ear, nearly imbedding itself the back of an unsuspecting Dwarf's head (Sleazy or Droopy), before hitting the dartboard smack-dab in the bullseye. Which would have been impressive, if not for being incredibly dangerous.

Killian leveled a glare at the child who giggled. He truly _hated_ the little sack of snot. A few other customers had clearly noticed the near-miss but said nothing, all of them too chicken-shit, apparently, to criticize Queen Snow's nonexistent parenting abilities. He was not one of them. But he was also more inclined to just sneak up on Snow White with some poppy dust while she was bathing the little demon spawn and let the brat drown, since she wouldn't listen anyway.

Oh, it would be very wrong, of course, but Killian figured not much _more_ wrong than The Charmings pouring dark magic into an innocent baby and shipping it to this world just to save themselves from the risk of being bad parents that failed to instill good moral judgment in their daughter and instead forced her to become some super-magical messiah. Or Emma killing Zelena and her unborn babe - and _she_ had the excuse of being the Dark One at the time, not just an entitled dumb-shit who couldn't stand the thought of her child having some manner of deformity. Sure, looks were highly important, but if he learned his progeny was to turn out a hideous hunchback, he'd just find the lad some bell to toll rather than cursing some other innocent with hideousness just so he wouldn't have to lie that little Liam couldn't attend the ball because he was off at boarding school, lest anyone know he'd spawned a less than perfect child. After all, one could always have more children.

Though she and Charming _really_ shouldn't. It was a pity that the ingredients for sterility potions were not readily available here. Perhaps he could non-lethally poison the woman and threaten Whale into pretending to remove her appendix while tying her tubes instead. At least have _something_ good come out of those books on pregnancy he was being forced to read!

Another knitting needle went flying, this one missing the Dwarf's head only because it stopped suddenly and dropped to the counter. Unsurprisingly, a moment later a shock of blond hair caught his attention, Emma striding in from the direction of the Inn.

Killian broke into a broad smile.

She made it all worth it. Emma Swan with her ethereal glow, his angel, his Bontachelli's Venus - he had bought Belle a bottle of fine wine for giving him that compliment after it got him thoroughly fucked aboard his ship! Oh, he'd loved Milah, but that woman was _high maintenan_ ce, always demanding jewels and fancy clothes. Sure, Milah was open to three-ways, which he'd yet to entice Emma into with that dragoness friend of hers, but he was sure he could wear her down by Lily's next visit. Anyway, the additional amount of time spent having sex instead of acquiring jewels and fancy clothes - which he could get via the Interweb, anyway - made up for the blonde being far less uninhibited and kinky than he'd thought she would be... before he realized that her empowered attitude was actually a common thing here rather than her being a diamond in the rough like Milah - and actually far _less_ empowered than, say, that wench who had that Huntsman-look-alike tie her up in his secret sex vault.

Still, Milah was ancient history that the fates clearly saw no reason to drop back into his life, thus cementing his certainty that he and Emma were destined by benevolent gods to grow old (but not ugly) together. And, besides, Emma was The Savior and a princess, and pregnancy had enhanced her boobs to something similar to that "Wonder Bra" trickery, and even if he'd have to deal with the otherwise unsightly pregnancy matters that men here were expected to find sexy and involve themselves in, it got him status and knighthood and the mark of hero. Of course, it would have been better if that Snow White hadn't slipped some fertility cocktail into Emma's hot chocolate. Not that he had proof, but he was quite sure Emma had been vigilant in taking those little pills as he was not going to wear one of those sheath things due to the "latex and lanolin allergy" he'd convinced Dr. Whale to write for him!

Well, from the bosom up and her fine bum, of course, Emma was still a vision, and given how her parents behaved with their brats, he figured they would keep to the royal practice of foisting their spawn off on someone else to raise until it was old enough to take sailing and teach valuable gambling and getting laid lessons!

"Emma, luv!" Killian beamed as she approached, her hand raising up to caress. "You're looking particularly-"

He was taken completely by surprise when instead the hand smacked him hard across the face, sending him tumbling back. "What the h-"

"MILAH WAS NEAL'S MOTHER!?" Emma screeched, hazel eyes furious.

 _Aw, bullocks!_ "Erm... pardon?" he coughed, feigning ignorance, as it worked about ninety-five percent of the time, though was generally more successful if he also had his flask to share, which was problematic of late since alcohol apparently caused birth defects - which perhaps explained Snow's mental deficiency, what with the royals drinking a keg of wine at every meal.

The whole diner had gone silent and Emma stared him down. "Answer the question, Killian. Was the woman that Gold killed, that you vowed your undying love for, that you spent _three hundred years_ seeking to avenge, whose name is _tattooed on your arm_ , MY SON'S GRANDMOTHER!?"

He blinked, then shrugged casually. "It was three centuries ago, luv, I don't really see-"

She hit him again.

"Owe!"

"You fucked me in the same bed as Neal's mother!?"

"Pretty sure Blackbeard changed the shee-"

 _Smack!_

" _iiit, woman_!"

"When we were in Neverland, did you tell Neal we had sex!?"

"Well... it was more... that I implied our dalliance was of the intimate variet-OUCH, DAMN IT!" Killian howled when the openhanded slap turned to a close-fist punch in the nose.

"Oh, _shut up_! You've punched enough women in the face that you can take it!" Emma snarled. "What really happened between you and Neal in Neverland? The first time? Were you actually friends?"

"Erm... well... for a time, aye, we... thing is... he wasn't too keen on staying aboard after he found out about me and his mum, that she hadn't been raped and killed by pirates but rather happily ravished by one, and Pan wanted payment-"

"You handed Neal over to Pan _for spite!?"_

"It was more like... protection. He wanted the boy, the boy didn't want to stay-"

"BECAUSE HE FOUND OUT HIS MOTHER LEFT HIM TO BE RAVISHED BY YOU!" Emma shouted and kneed him in the groin for good measure.

"Emma!" Mary Margaret gasped, pulling her back. "You shouldn't-"

"Oh, shut up!" Emma snapped her. "You're too busy knitting to even notice my sister nearly giving Happy a lobotomy!"

"Emma-"

"BACK OFF!" she growled and a wave of magic pushed her mother and everyone else back. Even little Princess Ruthie's levitated toys went flying back into the diner's walls... which, of course, set the kid to wailing.

"You're scaring your sister!" Snow cried while Killian tried to get up, but slammed back into the wall, then fell back to the floor.

"Look who's on their back now!" Emma snapped. "Did you mean it when you had a sword at my throat? Was that really just bawdy talk to distract me? Or if I hadn't given in to your charms, would you have gotten me drunk and jabbed me with your 'sword'? Was that what all the rum was about in Neverland? Offer enough, maybe we would have a 'dalliance'? Our first date that you pouted through because I refused the wine to stay sober? Oh _, but you'll be far more pliable to my chams if you have some wine, love_. It was something like that, wasn't it? But not really a joke, was it? And after finding out about Ingrid, again, out pops the rum flask! _Have the whole thing and cry on my shoulder, Emma!_ Upset about your parents lying? _Have some rum, Emma, and see how much I need you to need me!_ Having trouble dealing with all the shit you did as the Dark One, _get sloshed with me and have hate sex_. I bet you only held off telling me about your fucking ship because you thought you had me hot and bothered and needed just a little bit of a emotional 'oh, he's so brave and self-sacrificing' spiel to get me up to your room! Oh, the pity that plan was derailed by Zelena. But you got me anyway _and_ your ship. _Some sacrifice_. Were you even telling the truth that you didn't remember meeting me in the past? Or was that bullshit too? Just like whatever the hell you've been telling Henry about being best mates with his father and how to pick up girls by getting them drunk!"

The door to the diner opened, David barging in. He'd been in the squad car just turning on Main, looking cool with his new Ray-Bans, when he'd gotten a call of an assault at Granny's, but the last thing he'd expected to find was his wife pulling his daughter off a bloody-faced Killian laying on his back behind the counter while Emma hit him with a broom - and Mary Margaret tried to get to a screaming Ruth in her high chair as tableware flew around the baby, slashing at her rather hideous orange jacket.

"OWE BLOODY HELL, WOMAN!"

"ANSWER ME!" Emma bellowed. "ANSWER ME NOW OR SO HELP ME, I WILL RIP YOUR HEART OUT AND MAKE YOU TELL THE TRUTH!"

"YES!" he croaked out. " _Yes, all right_!? You were just a pretty wench who betrayed me! You had it coming! But I _did_ fall in love with you! I just wanted to hurry it along! You were so damned resistant, always pushing me away, telling me 'no' when your eyes said 'yes'! And when we got back from our detour to the past... it was more a... a feeling that we had a connection. So, really, the second time around-"

"I was a pretty wench who not only left you to die on a beanstalk, I seduced you, clocked you over the head, and robbed you!?"

"Well... perhaps of a fashion, but with a hint of intrigue?" he tried to defend himself and flinched in antiquation of another blow that didn't come. "You resembled that woman, minus the scar above her breast-"

"So, I inadvertently planted some fucking notion in your already perverted mind that we were meant to be together?" Emma hissed. "That's what you're saying? Because according to Zelena, you babbled on about how I was your destined one true love before all of that!"

"All right... perhaps... I became a bit... infatuated with some... fantasies during that year. It was very lonely trying to abstain from any other w- _OWE!_ "

"You knew me for five days!" Emma shouted. "FIVE DAYS! We met a handful of times before that when you TRIED TO KILL ME! Climbing a giant fucking phallic symbol means true love to you? Actually, I'm not surprised!"

"Emma, luv, I'm sorry that I lied!" Killian gasped. "I was just afraid that if you knew the truth, I'd lose you!"

"Yeah, well, you got that right," she hissed, removing her ring. "Giving me the same ring you gave my kid's grandmother. _That's just sick_."

She threw it at him, turned on her heel and walked out, slamming the door so hard the bell fell off.

No one spoke.

Ruth stopped crying, her cyclone of forks, knives, and spoons clattering to the floor and Snow rushed in to grab her, scoop her up, and soothing her with cooing words.

Killian pushed himself to his feet, and holding his side, gave pursuit of the blonde, out the door with a shout of "EMMA, WAIT!", barely escaping a rather large butcher knife from behind the counter that struck the door, cutting several of the venetian blinds before clattering to the floor.

Ruby leveled The Charmings with a stern look. "You know what? I've had it with you. I'm banning all your kids from the premises. They need help. Like serious help. I'm not kidding. Get your parenting shit together before someone gets killed!"

The yellow flashing of her eyes made Ruthie whimper and tuck her little head under Snow's chin while Charming looked between the mess his youngest had created and what was probably gearing up to be another magic storm rained down by his eldest outside and wondered, not for the first time, if he should have stayed on that farm.

But then he caught his reflection in the chrome napkin dispenser with his cool Ray-Bans, new leather jacket, and manly shoulder holster and gun that would make Dirty Harry envious, and thought, _nah, it was totally worth it!_

* * *

AN: Snow White of Season 3-4 always make me think of Lucy in _Epic Movie_ : the Dumbshit. And Charming is such a douche, am I right? Dude loves power just as much his brother, he's just incompetent at using it. Actually, so was James, he just looked bad-ass. I think of Sheriff Charming like a character from _Reno 911_ ; all he needs is a pair of booty shorts. And did you catch the non-Leia _Star Wars_ reference? Also, no offense to British people. Hook's views do not reflect my own. Oh, and Baby Ruth is a nod to _Rosemary's Baby_ , which was once Ginny's Halloween costume, though I don't _think_ she's the Antichhrist!

Next up: Neal resolves his crisis with his usual bad timing.


	7. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

**CHAPTER SEVEN: ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND**

(In which Neal's choice is revealed with terrible timing, as per usual.)

The Library used to be Neal's refuge. Well, libraries in general.

When he was a kid here, he'd always considered the library as the closest thing he had to a home, since you could stay all day and no one would kick you out, and being able to learn about the new world he'd dropped into. But Storybrooke's library was just a dusty place that _regular_ people avoided, a pet project that Belle took on as a job that like a lot of jobs in Storybrooke seemed to be bullshit people used to occupy their time but actually serviced no one.

He'd intended to stay in Belle's old apartment upon her and his father's offer, but that was before he discovered that Hook was using the Library's second floor to stash booze, cigars, porn, and his gambling-related paraphernalia for when he held after hours poker and dice games, cockfights (for which he had a subscription to _Cockfighting Aficionado_ that came to the apartment's address), and other illegal activities with former members of his crew, the Merry Men, and some other unsavory sorts that now included Prince James and "Jack" in the large expanse of storage space.

Neal had spent all of two nights there before waking up to the sound of homicidal chickens, and after threats from Hook while he was shoved up against a splintered post with a bloody chicken-claw-razor held to his throat, Neal had decided it wasn't worth staying there and made up some BS about the pipes rattling and the hot water heater not working and that it was just easier to go back to Granny's until he'd worked out his employment situation, because he didn't want charity.

Now Neal wouldn't have to worry about that for awhile, though he did feel like he was intruding, throwing himself into a different family situation that hadn't been set up to include him. Of course, Belle had insisted she didn't mind, but he knew that his stepmother, and father too, had been planning to finally put his death behind them and start a family of their own... until the dead started popping up and threw a wrench in that plan... not that it was stopping Emma from moving on, and not that it would have bothered him all things considered if the circumstances of his death and the choice of her partner were different. It was hard not to feel jilted that even as the Dark One she hadn't known about his situation - and that it was _that prick_ who'd saved her and won her heart and was going to get everything he'd always wanted.

This was really the only option left to him, Neal accepted, as the elevator doors opened onto the second floor, now cleaned of the fighting ring and chalked in alchemal permutations.

"Are you sure about this?" Rumplestiltskin asked, his hands clasped over his cane. "When I suggested it before..."

Neal let out a breath and nodded. "Things have changed. I can't run away from here, not really. Magic will always follow me. This place, these people... but I can't, I can't be a part of it either, Papa. I can't be... Neal Cassidy. He died in that forest and it's obvious they don't want him back. And I know... I know that person - the person I am now - doesn't mean a hell of a lot to you..."

"Son," Rumple rasped out, "that isn't true."

"You don't have to lie, Papa," sighed Neal. "I'm a stranger to you. And a reminder of what went wrong. I seem to be the same for Emma and Henry. So... you get your wish in the end. If I can't be a father to my son... I can at least be the son you lost. Then maybe... maybe this won't hurt as much for either of us."

Gold laid a hand on his arm. "I am so sorry, son. Emma and Henry... they should have been your happy ending. I saw the way she looked at you in New York. And your boy... he _did_ love you."

"Yeah, and weeks after I kicked it he was using my death to play on your emotions in some extortion plot because he cared more about Regina getting with his 'childhood hero' that she knew for all of a week. All of that book stuff, maybe it screwed up Henry's sense of right and wrong. Or just being raised by a sociopath. All I know is that I'm a relic, and not the museum masterpiece kind. The pawn shop junk kind that most people throw in dumpsters-"

"Bae-"

"No, it's true," he cut his father off. "That's how they look at me, Papa. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough, tall enough, handsome enough, or... just interesting enough to fit into their happy ending. It's only for royals and rogues. Peasant Lost Boy car thieves don't fit in. Not even having a kid with a princess can make me part of their story if Emma and Henry don't want me."

He was crying now, in spite of his promise not to, and his father pulled him into a hug.

"It will be okay, my boy. Happy endings aren't always what we want or expect, but... I will do everything I can to see that you are happy. And you will _always_ be enough for me."

As the clock tower began to chime, Rumplestiltskin began the incantation...

* * *

AN: Wait, Rumple has magic? He didn't lose it when he was no longer the Dark One? Does everyone know? Or is he just casting a spell like Belle and Zelena did with external magical bullshit? How the hell should I know?

Next up: Always listen to Cora.


	8. Punch Buggy, No Punch Backs

**CHAPTER EIGHT: PUNCH BUGGY, NO PUNCH BACKS**

(In which Emma's vacuum-sealed-to-her-ass jeans are tragically killed by The Bug for stealing screentime with butt shots.)

"EMMA, WAIT!"

"LEAVE ME ALONE, KILLIAN!"

He tried to grab her arm. _Of course he did_. Emma pulled away and threw a blast of magic his way that prevented him from following before digging out her keys.

The screeching of tires came out of nowhere, the engine noise concealed by the blaring clock tower until the source was almost upon them.

Emma turned, just in time to see the speeding vehicle barreling toward Killian - who was still stuck to the street. She threw her hands outward, channeling magic to freeze the van, _but nothing happened_. And then there was a sickening impact and he was flying out of his pointy-toed boots through the air, and the swerving van was now careering right at her.

In a confused panic, Emma launched herself like a stunt woman over the hood of the Bug, felt the jarring impact of the van slam into the Volkswagen, and then the pain of her own body hitting the concrete sidewalk. The sound of bending metal and breaking glass was deafening and there was so much _pain_. When the sound finally abated, leaving her ears ringing, Emma tried to move, but her limbs refused to cooperate and all she could see was smoke before her vision swam to a blur and she had to shut her eyes to keep from throwing up.

A loud rushing sound startled her back to awareness and three Dadvids... no David... Dad...er... Prince Charming was crouching over her while far too many Marcos were/was doused dancing flames with an extinguisher and someone was shouting for the fire truck and an ambulance. She heard Leroy somewhere out of sight grousing, "I understand the whole sleep talking thing, but what I don't understand is the princess dragon dream and why I'm in it."

"Guys!" the Davids snapped, "now is not the time!"

"Emma, don't try to move," three Mary Momgrets... er... Mom... Margaret warned, kneeling down.

"Wha... hurts," Emma managed. It really _really_ hurt.

"I know, honey. Your leg is pinned between the car and the lamp post. Billy is on his way with the tow truck."

Emma raised her head enough to see, and wished that she hadn't. Her beloved jeans that made her butt look so awesome were torn by a very white piece of bone sticking out just bellow her left knee - all three of them - and her leg from the rest of the way down was bent at a super not natural angle.

Her head spun, but she managed not to vomit as she tried to focus, and raised her hand toward the post. If she could vanish it... whichever one was the actual post. She felt her magic well up... but again nothing happened.

"The tow truck is here," her mother told her. "Just try not to move, Emma."

Then there were sirens that made her head scream and the tow-truck was pulling the van that had the Bug pressed up against the lamp post.

There more screeching as the car moved, and Emma only just realized the sound was coming from her before she passed out.

* * *

AN: RIP, Killian Jones and Emma's jeans. I have faith that Billy and Mr. Tillman will be able to save The Bug!

Next up: Dr. Whale finally delivers his theory with a take-away bag of brains! Well, okay, no take-away bag. Cora's still a chapter away!


	9. Stupid Cupid

**CHAPTER NINE: STUPID CUPID**

(In which Emma and the readers finally get some answers!)

The sterile smell of the hospital brought Emma back to awareness. She found herself in a bed in a private room. Her right leg was in a thick cast from her knee to around her ankle and foot pinned into a traction harness and her left wrist was in one of those hard Velcro wrap splints.

As she was trying recall anything that might explain why she was here, the glass door opened and, Emma focused on Dr. Whale as she groaned out, "Fuck I feel like I got hit by a car…" That jogged something. "Wait I did? And it was my car?"

"Well, yes, though technically it was due to a van hitting your car and pinning your leg against a light pole," the doctor replied, flipping open her chart. "You're very lucky to be alive. Seems Walter fell asleep behind the wheel. Frankly, I'm surprised it's taken this long for him to hit someone. Anyway, he and Leroy only have minor injuries and were released. Your injuries were more severe. Fractured skull, broken ribs, your leg... The broken bone nicked an artery which required a transfusion, but thankfully it was a clean break, so the cast should be off in four to six weeks. The skull fracture, that was the real issue. It caused some increased intercranial pressure, so we put in a shunt to drain fluid."

Emma gingerly reached up and felt the port protruding from her head. Confused, she asked, "Why... I couldn't be healed with magic?"

"The same reason that Mr. Jones could not be saved by magic, I'm afraid. _Magic_ ," Dr. Whale stated, as though that made perfect sense.

"Killian," Emma uttered, snippets of memory coming back of them arguing. "He... he's-?"

"Was hit by the aforementioned van, which was apparently full of unprocessed fairy dust which blocks all non-fairy magic or something. Frankly, half of the stuff you people spout about your almighty mystical mojo sounds like a contradictory crock of shit."

"Killian's dead," Emma managed. She should feel horrible. Her _husband_ was dead. The father of her-

Her hand went to her stomach. "My baby?"

"Oh, right, you were never pregnant."

"But I had an ultrasound," Emma stated, her mind spinning.

"According to Rumplestiltskin, magic can alter video footage as he has used this method before to pin his criminal dealings on others. It would certainly explain why the machine went on the fritz when I tried to print the images. The neurosyphilis combined with magic could have resulted in the manifestation of a hallucination."

" _Syphilis_!? Like... the old-timey _venereal_ disease?"

"Most well known amongst sea-fairing folk for their promiscuous sexual behavior and terrible hygiene," said Whale matter-of-factly, "so you most-likely got it from Mr. Jones either from an oral chancre or intercourse. Considering that I have seen that you two make-out like you are trying to strip paint off the inside of each others mouths with your tongues while dry humping, I'd say either is equally likely. At this point, it's impossible to say if you aquired it before or after you went off to New York, what with also suffering brain damage from a raging case of Herpes B. Both of which caused a hormone imbalance that resulted in higher than normal HCB levels and water retention. And, of course, deviant sexual behavior and other mental health issues."

"But.. we were both tested for STDs."

"Oh, yes, well, antibodies complicate diagnostic testing for herpesvirus simiae, which you must have gotten from your boyfriend Walsh, due to their high level of cross-reactivity, that is, potential for both false-positive and false-negative results. And this particular strain of syphilis only shows up in spinal fluid, which is why you were both negative when you had an STD test, and I wasn't just saying that then because Mr. Jones threatened to castrate me with a butter knife if I revealed any unsavory discoveries, as he clearly either failed to understand doctor-patient confidentiality or didn't care...

"Although, this particular strain qualifies as a public health emergency which preempts that confidentiality, so I had to inform Regina of your infection and have requested that everyone get tested, first and foremost those exhibiting lowered inhibitions, irrational decision making, and increasingly, well, horny, and obsessive sexual and fixated behavior - hence the term 'Cupid's Disease', which is likely how syphilis first spread, with those carriers who were spared the horrible physical lesions and other deformities - as nothing spreads faster than a sexually transmitted disease carried by pretty, horny, obsessive people with extremely poor judgment.

"Of which the Enchanted Forest seems to have more than the usual percentage. I wouldn't be surprised if this strain originated in this world and one of those portal-happy authors transported it to the Enchanted Forest where it met a magical host and mutated into the mother of all venereal diseases through all of the inbreeding and attempts to treat with magic rather than simple penicillin. And I'm not sure I even want to speculate how a man being turned into a flying monkey resulted in a rare venereal disease. Regardless, I expect there will be a lot of outcry and public hearings about invasion of privacy and 'medicine is evil quackery' from the second generation curse group of Enchanted Forest rednecks, so I'd make sure that boy of yours has a sock drawer full of condoms, just to be on the safe side. Better safe than a brain full of hungry spirochetes, I always say..."

He made a note on his chart, before continuing, "Well, accept for Mr. Jones. He _was_ a sociopath, so if spirochetes hadn't munched on his brain, never mind the herpes you gave him, he'd probably never have experienced anything close to genuine emotion. Syphilis was probably the best thing to happen to him... and anyone who avoided becoming a victim of his murderous intentions after his violent obsessive behavior was mutated into emo-teenage boyish infatuation.

"Anyway, the progression of both of your infections were retarded somewhat so as not to be quickly fatal. Perhaps it was having both infections or something to do with magic. Anyway, it's all very exciting research, and we're going to try using stem cells and hormone replacement therapy to repair at least some of the damage, so don't despair too much! Really, that we caught it now is a good thing. With that fever you came in with, you could have dropped dead from incurable encephalitis by tomorrow!" Dr. Whale cheerfully informed.

Closing her chart, he concluded, "I'll refer you to Dr. Hopper for mandatory therapy sessions in dealing with any remaining deviant sexual behavior or hallucinations after you've completed the treatment and we do some FMRI scans to check your brain activity and blood flow in the damaged areas."

"You're saying I... went kind of... crazy today because of a _syphilis and herpes_?" Emma asked while still trying to process that she was never pregnant and Killian was dead.

Shrugging, the Doctor declared, "Sometimes true love is just an STD!"

* * *

AN: I could have called this chapter "The Don Draper Effect". If you were a _Mad Men_ viewer, you'll know that some bloggers theorized Don's sexual promiscuity, boozing, and general asshole attitude (on top of hallucinations toward the end) was due to neurosyphilis. That aside, take the medicine here with a _House_ and Wikipedia grain of salt. But it's _Once Upon A Time_ where you can save a drowning victim with CPR that's just kissing them, so logic is bullshit.

Next up: If you love Zelena, you'll be happy. If you hate Zelena... hopefully, you'll still be happy. I had fun with this one.


	10. Revenge of the Miller's Daughter

**CHAPTER TEN: REVENGE OF THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER**

(In which Zelena has an internship and Cora is definitely up to something.)

After exiting the hall, Dr. Whale gestured to the bored-looking blonde flipping through a magazine. "Call me if she suffers another psychotic break... or sprouts monkey wings. That only happened to the first batch of rats, but, you know, better safe than more broken windows."

"How did I get Savior baby-sitting duty?" Tinkerbell whined while twiddling with her butterfly necklace.

"I'd imagine it's because Mother Superior hates you for undermining her authority, dressing like a Seattle grunge band roadie from the nineteen-nineties, and having woefully inferior non-fairy friends."

"Yeah, she's kind of a stone-cold bitch," Tinkerbell agreed before slipping into Emma's room.

Leaving the rebellious fairy to monitor Emma Swan, Whale went to the laboratory where he found Zelena bent over a small pink lump of brain in a petrii dish. For a Wicked Witch, left without her magic, the redhead was a surprisingly quick study of microbiology. He suspected if she'd grown up in the Land Without Magic - or his own, but adopted by a progressive family who didn't discriminate like his own - and was treated for her syphilis at birth, she could have done great things.

Sure, she was a bit emotionally unbalanced from the neurosyphilis (acquired from her mother who got it from her rapist father), but treating the symptoms of the brain damage with meds for bipolar disorder seemed to have helped. Both Regina and their mother appeared to suffer from a milder form of the mental disorder, but getting Regina to take medication was problematic... hence dosing her coffee at Granny's. They'd gone through Olanzapine, Quetiapine, Risperidone, Ariprazole, and Ziprasidone (which made for some rather unpredictable behavior) before settling on Clozapine.

Unfortunately, not everything in this town could be set right with some Penicillin and anti-psychotics. There was no medicine for the malady of compounding crises that had added up into a massive fiasco of accumulative magical bullshit.

"How much of that have you picked at?" Whale finally said when the ex-witch didn't look up from her dissecting.

"Oh, it's not like it'll be missed!" Zelena scoffed back. "It's even more riddled with holes than flying monkey brains. Speaking of which, the last treatment I tried caused the lab rats to cannibalize each other. Not that I'd mind if Sleeping Fuck-Me Hair Beauty and her cardboard prince tried to gnaw each other's faces off, but I don't need that stroller gang of brain-damaged princesses coming after me!"

"It is a bit of a problem," agreed Whale. "The monkey disease, not the stroller gang. Well, them as well, I suppose..."

Shrugging that off for the moment, Dr. Whale approached the lightboard where a CT film showed the damaged areas of a brain scan as dark spots. Not nearly as bad as the one beside it that was riddled with lesions, but still confirmation, at least in part, that Emma's behavior had at least _partially_ a medical cause.

"Hopefully whatever residual magical component is in her brother's blood will start to bind with the... whatever it is that's mutated the syphilis..."

"Anything that cures even some of Boo-Boo Birdie's ills is a success as far as I'm concerned," snorted Zelena. "Stupid bitch locked up innocent people, let thieves and rapists run amuck. And then thought bringing some dead woman to the future was heroic? It served my purposes, of course, but, honestly, her family has an utterly buggered sense of morality. Between that and marrying a three hundred year old walking disease..."

"You're just upset that the pirate's cursed lips didn't work out the way you'd hoped and you had to get knocked up by a bleeding heart fool with the integrity of wet tissue paper."

"Cursed lips, contagious dick, hardly matters now," shrugged the former witch. "And I'm still not letting Baby Sis or Mummy Dearest near the fruit of my deceitful womb. Never mind that troglodyte. I mean, honestly, who jumps at the chance to shag their wife's murderer next to said comatose wife and then declares it's honorable to stay with their rapist? I've met rock trolls with more sense than that shits for brains the Blue Fairy tricked my sis into believing is her true love. Though, in Robin's defense, I think Snow White is still stupider."

Setting her scalpel down, she asked, "You're really sure we can't take Snow White's other brats? I'm sure Tonkerbell would be more than happy to blow some fairy dust up her-"

"I'm really sure we can't take her children and cut open their brains," stated Whale. "We were lucky just to get Emma in a position to do so."

"Yes, _lucky_ ," another voice sans British accent startled both.

In her usual fashion, Cora slithered into the room... holding a white rabbit which earned a scowl from Whale.

"We must make our own _luck_. In this case, the pirate had to pay for betraying me for princess pussy and you needed your Savior brains. It's a win-win."

"Are you saying you orchestrated the accident?" the Doctor exclaimed.

"Hardly an accident. Killian Jones certainly isn't the first rape-inclined handsome rogue to suffer tragedy for crossing The Miller's Daughter. A little fairy might have informed me of a new shipment of diamonds and a little poppy dust in Sneezey's handkerchief gave Sleepy that extra incentive to fall asleep behind the wheel at _just_ the right time with that van conveniently full of fairy dust. Of course, the little Savior magically gluing his boots to the road wasn't my doing. That should make for some amusing guilt juxtaposed with the rage of betrayal. It's always so fun to watch that family try to process more than one emotion at a time. Perhaps, you could inject something into her brain to fix that?"

Whale's frown increased and he ordered, "Please stop petting the test subjects."

"Oh, you're no fun," Cora scoffed and in a purple poof that bunny had returned to its cage.

"You realize that you are admitting to premeditated murder?" Whale stated.

"Because that's a first for the women in this family," scoffed Zelena with a roll of her eyes. "And says the necromancer."

"Murder that was so masterfully planned it resulted in the very test subject you most desired being wheeled into your operating room," Cora defended and walked over to the light board. "Funny pictures. Is this the pirate's brain? It's more riddled with holes than Zelena's."

"Like yours is much better, Mummy!"

"Oh, don't sass me, girl. You have a brain like swiss cheese thanks to that no good father of yours and Snow White's dimwitted sire. Just be grateful that I convinced your sister to let you play assistant for Dr. Whale in his apothecary project to reduce potion costs for the lowly peasants."

"It's a compounding pharmacy," said Whale with a harumph. "We make _drugs_ not potions."

"Yep, drugs," sniggered Zelena. "Lots and lots of drugs. Just call him Dr. Heisenberg."

Sighing, Whale retorted, "That show has been off the air for years."

"Hey, I've been dead for years. And we're providing a very important service for all those anti-tech nutters shitting in the woods which, in turn, provides a service for this town as it keeps them so strung out, they don't have the time or mental acuity left to sabotage the power plant or shut down Main Street with their protest marches. Frankly, we should just turn them all into flying monkeys. They're practically flinging their own shit as it is."

"Now, now," Cora cautioned. "This world's advances may have their advantages, but that's no reason to turn its detractors into winged simian. You must learn to curb your animosity, Zelena, and keep channeling it into a sustainable lucrative addiction-based business. Goodness knows it worked for the Blue Fairy for centuries. You're filling the void created when that bug found religion. And I'm very proud of you."

"Really!?" Zelena gushed.

"Of course. You're learning to plot the downfall of others in small ways that benefit your family's legacy. Unlike your sister who is plotting her own downfall at the expense of this family by sharing a bed with that slack-jawed yokel from Locksley. Mind you, I'm not thrilled that you bedded him as using an unborn child as leverage in a game of revenge is no way to guarantee happiness. After all, it might turn out mentally defective or hideously ugly or smarter than you, and then you've gone and invested all of that time and effort and made an enemy out of its parents under the presumption that the brat will turn out a perfect puppet. It was only after giving you up that I realized some good might have come out of the horrible dishonor of your existence if I had been patient and made the best of the hand I was dealt."

Zelena frowned and asked, "I thought you told Regina you wanted her to get married and have a child for her happiness, and it was the pain you carried from having to give me up that made you realize what real happiness is?"

Cora scoffed. "Oh, please. _I didn't have a heart_. And we both know that 'you can feel deeply without a heart' thing that you and Rumple sold Regina for your time spell is complete bullshit that she deluded herself into believing like every other good thing about herself, including her love for that adopted brat of hers. I didn't realize how fulfilling motherhood could have been until I was _dying_. Anything I said before that was purely to mind fuck Regina. She was just so gullible and self-defeatingly headstrong. And I needed Rumple to get that curse cast so I could kill him in this boring little world and become the Dark One myself. If she wanted to destroy her womb, that was irrelevant to my plan... and clearly for the best considering her taste in men, as any child she and the forest hobo produced would be likely be riding the short bus to school, _too_ stupid or insane to effectively manipulate.

"And there's another thing, Zelena," she lectured, "just aspiring to _control_ the Dark One. You should never sell yourself short. Plan big. But that doesn't mean one should make a habit of stacking the deck, either, as you're likely to get caught and ruffed up by the House. Or hit by a van. The pirate also swindled me in a cockfight _and_ refused to pay the dry cleaning bill. Magic in this world won't remove blood stains from silk!

"Anyway," Cora changed the subject abruptly, "I'm only here drop off dinner from Granny's..." A take-away bag appeared in a cloud of purple smoke on the counter. "And to pick up the next product shipment for Nottingham to continue undermining Saint Eva's attempts to civilize and unradicalize the forest dwellers and farm fanatics so that we can live in one big utopian society."

Smiling, Zelena opened a cupboard and handed over a large clear bag of blue crystals. As she did, Cora complained, something chirped annoyingly in Cora's pocket, and the older woman pulled out an iPhone in with a bunny ears case. "I don't know why I have to carry around this infernal contraption when we can use mirrors!"

 _"I can hear you, Mother_ ," responded Regina's annoyed tone. _"You are late for_ -"

"A very important date."

 _"Your Wonderland jokes are not funny."_

"Of course they are. You were simply born without a sense of humor, Regina."

 _"And you were born without respect for other people's property. You need to stop leaving dead bodies in my kitchen, Mother. They nearly gave Daddy a heart attack!"_

"Well, it could be worse, you didn't rip his heart out and crush it."

 _"Mother!"_

"Honestly, your father is so pathetic. Dying is the best thing he ever did for you. Now he just plays golf with Leopold all day. A couple of imbeciles, those two. It's like an elderly version of that _Odd Couple_ show on that picture box. Of course, Leopold is the slob. I don't know what I _ever_ saw in him. He couldn't even make fire!"

 _"Mother, the bodies!"_

"They're just transfigured snails, dear. I was simply trying to make a point to Roland that it's unseemly to go about wasting salt on the snails in the garden that you _should_ be eradicating using that potion I brewed."

 _"Stop trying to parent my step-son, Mother! And one of them is my housekeeper!"_

"You have a snail as a housekeeper? That seems counterproductive."

 _"MOTHER!"_

Hanging up, Cora sighed. "If I had a snail for every temper tantrum that girl has thrown, I could rule France."

"You've been to France?" asked Whale.

"Don't be silly. I've been to a timeless realm of literary clichés based on the British Regency where I attempted to seduce The Prince Regent, though I suspect he might have preferred the company of his butler, if you know what I mean."

She vanished in a puff of purple smoke, phone, meth and all, leaving an irritated Dr. Whale who complained, "Your _mother_ is overconfident. What if the Sheriffs find out and they start sniffing around?"

Zelena shruggingly told him, "Relax, Victor. Like anyone will miss the pirate. He served no purpose other than replacing The Savior's vibrator. And knowing The Charmings, they'll have Narcoleptic Dwarf driving Henry to school while Emma throws herself under the next available man to get over her poor shmoopie's demise. It's how things work in the world _I_ was born in. A world populated by chivalrous rapists and stupid princesses who think that swigging from a flask and punching the men in the face offsets making all of the boozing and physical violence about their soul-sucking desperation to have a cock between their legs. Me? I don't try to couch it in some false feminist buggery when I'm feeling horny," she declared, moving swiftly to pin the doctor against the light board, then grinned and amended seductively, "What do you say we shag in the morgue, Dr. Whale?"

The Doctor slipped an arm around her waist. "Thought you'd never ask!"

* * *

AN: Yes, Tinkerbell was the "little fairy". I see her a dissident within the "order" trying to undermine The Blue Fairy and gain followers to overthrow her so that they can be free of her ideological tyranny! Obvious nods to _iZombie_ and _Breaking Bad_. Tonkerbell cracks me up, so I had to mention her. What timeless realm did Cora visit? Hint: she's referencing a television series known for its satire, one of the stars of which later shared screentime with Jennifer Morrison.

Next up: Emma contemplates a dick.


	11. O Captain! My Captain!

**CHAPTER ELEVEN: O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!**

(In which Hook's only useful appending is referenced in a brief interlude that somehow manages not to delve into necrophilia, you pervs!)

After wiping some sticky stuff off her hand from the tread of her wheelchair, a pain-medicated Emma sat in the hospital morgue looking at the body of her husband. She should have felt more grieved, she thought, seeing as she'd loved him, shared a life with him, was partially responsible for his death, even if she was temporarily insane at the time. Of course, she should have felt more grieved when Neal died, so maybe there was just something wrong with her even before the spirochetes started eating her brain.

Killian looked... like himself but paler, she supposed. Somehow it figured that even dying (and even with his skull sown back on), Killian would manage to have kept his smolder turned up to eleven, not so much as a smudge to his eyeliner. Of course, beneath the sheet, from the neck down... she'd been told he had massive crush injuries. His ribs had shattered, one shard right though the heart, killing him almost instantly. Even if that had managed to miss, his other internal organs were so badly damaged, Dr. Whale said, that they couldn't even have been donated if he'd signed one of those organ donation forms that he'd been given after his original pirate-versus-car accident instead of scoffing at it (and, you know, hadn't had contagious syphilis); she remembered that, after the Jell-O thing, some witty, egoist comment about his organs that had devolved into euphemisms about his penis.

It also figured that even in death, he had a boner.

He'd died how he lived, pretty-faced with a perpetual hard-on.

"I'm sorry," Emma sighed. "I mean... not sorry enough that I'm not still mad at you and would have demanded an annulment or something for all the lying and giving me the mother all STDs that fucked up my brain and, apparently, being a sociopath who only thought you were in love with me because of brain damage that you gave me that made me go temporarily psycho, but... it sucks that there's a sort of tragic irony to death in this town. I never meant for you to die. And we did have really great sex. I'll miss the sex. Although, I have to admit, it was a little weird calling your cock 'The Captain'. I mean, I don't call my vagina 'The Savior'. But, you know, it was... fun... I guess, even if we gave each other neurologically destructive STDs. You did always remember the onion rings even if you were kind of pathetically needy, but I guess that was the syphilis... and maybe the copious amounts of alcohol. It's kind of amazing your liver didn't burst into flames upon impact... Anyway... I hope there's calm seas wherever you're sailing, Killian Jones."

With a sniff, Emma wheeled her chair back to the door where Dr. Whale was waiting with that always-a-bit-creepy smile of his.

"Let's get you back to your room. Nurse?"

A dutiful nurse took over pushing Emma's wheelchair to the elevator. After the doors closed, Whale walked into the autopsy suit and pulled the sheet back, revealing the pirate's body in all of its wrecked glory.

"Pity about the hand, bro," he said, picking up the severed appendage. "But don't worry, I'll have you looking ship-shape for your wake. My father always said I missed my calling as a funeral director. Well, when he wasn't calling me a useless pervert. But we useless perverts have to stick together, am I right? High five!"

* * *

AN: Poor Killy Poo. He died with a boner... or maybe even in death he got turned on by Zelena and Whale doing the necromancer with two backs on the next table over. We will never know.

Next up: A funeral, breadsticks, more zingers from Cora, and Henry finally makes an appearance as the mouthy little teenage creep you know you secretly want him to be.


	12. Breadsticks

**CHAPTER TWELVE: BREADSTICKS**

(In which a funeral is glossed over in exposition in favor of a rather pathetic reception where Emma reflects on widowhood and bad parents... and Henry is a pervert!?)

Snow flurries fell on the deck of _The Jolly Roger_ as Emma stood on crutches, helped by Henry since Dr. Whale had thrown a fit over her using her fractured hand to support any of her weight. They'd gone as far out to sea as the town's magical barrier allowed, lowered the sheet-wrapped body in a longboat atop a bed of roses (damaged in the accident, so Moe French couldn't sell them)... and then after it had drifted a bit, Mary Margaret set it alight with an arrow... some sort of ancient mariner custom in the Enchanted Forest.

Then Smee steered the ship back to port, Emma endured being pushed down the ramp in her wheelchair, and they all went to an Italian buffet luncheon reception. And though the in-no-way-authentic-Italian food was kind of crap compared to anything Emma had gotten in New York, and she had so often wanted to get up and bitch-slap that pasta-slurping Lady and the fucking Tramp couple of regulars, Killian was always insistent on going there because of that first date... trying to milk it for all it was worth whenever they were in a rough patch.

Emma didn't love him anymore, had emerged from that disease-created-hormone-haze, but it felt like she had to at least go through the motions, because true or not, he had _believed_ that he loved her. And she _was_ partially responsible for his death, even if it was the disease he gave her that made her flip out and magically glue his boots to the street. Which, ironically, also gave her some clarity after years of just being horny for him.

And if that wasn't weird irony enough, it seemed that Killian had gotten the particularly virulent and magical-resistant syphilis from Neal's mother. Poseidon (who'd shown up for the funeral with Ursula), confirmed having sold some kind of rare and expensive potion to him _after_ selling one to Milah; she'd apparently led her new pirate lover to believe that her husband had been her only lover, dismayed as she was to be faithful to a coward in a small town where no other man would have the wife of a coward - when she'd actually been banging everything with a dick that came through town - hence having also purchased from Poseidon an infertility drought, as she hated kids and didn't want to be "shackled to another man via a needy brat just in case things don't work out with this one".

Apparently, Poseidon and his merfolk had gotten their jollies and revenue for oceanic upkeep by selling horny pirates, sailors, fisherman, and other seaside-adjacent humans potions. They also sent their teenagers out on some kind of Rumspringa type thing to experience having legs, human sex, and shitting in a hole in the ground instead of just wherever... or something. Emma hadn't asked Ariel for details on that when she showed up for festivities, though she did finally figure out what was happening to all of the buoys in the harbor and told Poseidon that maybe he should see about getting the mermaid a potion to cure kleptomania before Eric found himself married to a horder and was crushed to death in his castle under massive piles of fishing nets, plastic bags, and dirty needles.

Anyway, on the syphilis front, Poseidon had boasted that he made a killing on potions that required ingredients like squid ink or kraken saliva in maritime villages, and occasionally ventured further inland using the family leg-making jewels when there was some war going on that led to a rise in pregnancies and STDs, what with all of the soldiers going about raping and such. Pirates, of course, were his biggest customers, and Killian probably should have renewed his prescription, but who would guess that he'd live to be 300 plus years old and have a flare up?

Long story short, Emma now had to deal with having gotten an STD _from her kid's grandmother_. Which, in this family, was pretty much par for the course at this point.

On that creepy thought, Emma broke a stale, previously frozen breadstick in half and sighed.

This was _so_ depressing. She was a _widow_. She'd been Neal's almost-kind-of-whatever when he died, but the _almost_ meant a lot less pitying looks, and her having sort of killed Neal with magic with only Gold to see had never really registered with anyone else in the way her publicly cementing Killian to the street moments before he was turned into roadkill did.

She almost wished for Zelena to storm in making threats. Almost. That wackjob was better off in the Asylum.

"How are you holding up?" inquired Archie, walking over with a buffet plate in hand.

"Wishing it was late enough to switch from sangria to something stronger," Emma admitted with a grimace, then told the shrink, "Hey, look, I'm sorry for being rude the other day at Granny's when you were just trying to help. I know you didn't mean to run into me and I was angry at Neal, and-"

Brows furrowing, Archie replied, "Um... I'm not sure to what you're referring..."

"Pongo was chasing a cat. You ran into me. I was kind of bitchy," Emma related, "and then you helped me inside when I got dizzy..."

"I really don't recall."

"The day of the accident," Emma pressed.

Archie told her with a sympathetic look, "Emma, I was home all day with a migraine and Marco took Pongo to the beach. It must have been a hallucination during your psychotic break. But... I appreciate the unwarranted apology and I hope I can help you with your recovery."

"Thanks," Emma muttered, and turned her attention back to her pile of breadsticks. Well, _that_ was embarrassing. The story of her life lately, it seemed.

And speaking of embarrassments...

"Hey," she grabbed the hood of her son's sweatshirt as Henry was walking past, glued to his phone. "Pull your pants up, stop scratching yourself like a flying monkey, and give me your phone."

"MoooooooOOOOOOm."

"Now."

Grumbling, Henry did as ordered, handing over his phone with a particular look of offense that was _so_ Regina it was both impressive, unnerving, and just plain irritating all at once.

"I thought you would be in a better mood," Emma accused. "You were against me dating Killian. _And_ I thought I told you to wear something more appropriate than that ratty hoodie under your coat."

"Like Killian would have cared. He basically had two changes of clothes, his pirate shit and his rock star pimp clothes," Henry returned. "Besides, I liked him better when he realized he had to be super nice to me and do whatever I said or I'd rat his ass out for taking both my grandpa's and my dad's sloppy sec- _Owe!_ "

Now standing behind him and yanking on his ear, Regina snapped, "Don't talk to your mother that way. Go wait in the car. And _don't_ hot wire it to go for a joy ride again, or you _will_ be grounded for a month."

"Yes, _Mother_ ," Henry uttered in yet another eerily perfect imitation of Regina and trudged for the door.

"Teenagers," Regina sneered. "He has turned into an oily-skinned delinquent. I don't know what's worse, the stiff sheets, the copious amounts of jock itch powder, or the failure to wear proper amounts of deodorant."

"I'd say it's this," sighed Emma, pulling up a video of Jefferson's daughter taken at night, of her bedroom window, the curtains cracked enough that the girl could be seen walking past in her bra and panties... and unhooking her bra.

"Is he in a tree?" Regina gasped and turned furious. "Grounded for _two months_. No TV, Internet or video games. And certainly no phone," she stated, then deferred, "Unless you object."

"Hell no. Lock his ass in his room and throw away the key. Henry can get his school work through a slot in the door. And a lump of coal for Christmas!" Emma angrily stated. "And he's _definitely_ going back to therapy! I won't have my son growing up to be some... misogynist stalkery pervert date rapist!"

Looking a mix of smug and annoyed, Regina retorted, "So, you'll marry one, but you won't raise one? Aren't you the hereditary hypocrite today."

"I had brain damage!" Emma exclaimed.

"Brain damage, curses, it's a Sunday," Regina scoffed. "You Charmings always have an excuse. You didn't have brain damage when you shoved your tongue into his syphilitic mouth in the first place."

"Just the desperation of a whore losing her looks," Cora put in with a smirk as she sidled up to join them.

"You would know," Emma snarled at the woman, then directed at Regina, "And you pined for a guy you dated for three days and used the woman who thought was his wife to mop up the cum stains in your crypt and you can't blame _that_ on an STD! I don't know what I was thinking risking my neck for _your_ happy ending. Your whole family is made up of psychos."

"Technically, I used my sister _who gave me that infernal infection_ after she raped Robin."

"Yeah, well, she only raped him for nine weeks as opposed to you raping Graham for thirty-plus years. If you hadn't chugged that infertility potion-"

Regina conjured a ball of fire.

Emma conjured a ball of light.

"Now, now!" Cora scolded her youngest. "You're supposed to wait until _after_ the guests have departed before any sort of gloating or further revenge scheming related to the grieving family of the deceased."

She then waved a dismissive hand at Emma. "If you'd grown up in our world, you'd realize that sexual assaulting men is the only surefire way for a woman to gain any recognition as anything more than just a brood mare. I mean, look at your mother," she scoffed with a side-eye at Snow who had one kid in slung to her chest and the other smearing tomato sauce on her skirt while Charming completely ignored her, instead battling Robin in a game of who could stick a spoon to their nose the longest.

"Really, dear," she sighed at Regina, "you had to choose _him_?"

"Shut up, Mother," Regina growled and then glared at Emma, "I'm sure this is all your fault somehow!"

"What? Your true love being entertained by jangling keys or your mother being back from the dead with a slightly less Machiavellian plan to show you the true meaning of happiness?"

Regina's eyes flashed and Cora cackled, "I believe the word for that, dear, is 'burn'."

" _Shut up, Mother!_ It's bad enough we have to go Zelena's ultrasound next!"

She snarked at Emma, "So thank you _ever_ so much for saving _her_."

"Hey, you're forgetting that I killed her," Emma pointed out, grimacing as she said it, then muttering, "Not my fault she came back."

"Yes, well, let's just hope your pirate mascot stays dead this time. One less incestuous relationship in this family..."

"Incestuous? You shared a man with your sister! Your mother banged Henry's _and my_ grandfather!"

"Oh pish-posh," Cora tutted. "I never bedded Leopold. He was far too honorable to fool around before marriage. And by honorable, I mean an imbecile who clearly passed on his low intelligence to your mother. And for which you have my sympathies as it doesn't seem your father's side had much going for it other than alcoholism," she concluded with a sniff toward Emma's large glass that had more liquid than fruit.

"You mean like yours?"

"It's not an insult when I loathed the man, dear," scoffed the former Queen of Hearts. "And it's not Zelena's fault that she has psychological issues. Her father was a psychopathic rapist who got that infernal disease and she contracted it from me before she was born-"

"And now her brain looks like a deformed sponge and she's carrying my husband's illegitimate rape child," growled Regina.

"Yes, well, that's what you get for trying to be a hero and _not_ killing your sister when you had the chance. She would have died, no time spell, no screwed up timeline for you to further mess up by failing to take my advice, and you would be living happily ever after with the man whose wife you killed - neither of you aware of that particular bit of drama, and perhaps you would have been spared _my_ coming back from the dead to teach you that not everything in life is about other people stealing your happiness. So, just be grateful that you don't need a hay cart full of medication to keep from turning green and talking like one of those cartoon characters that Roland likes to watch on the picture box _because I got treated before you were born_ ," snapped Cora.

Regina snorted. "Yes, by your lover Rumplestiltskin. Who taught that ginger bitch magic and whose whore first wife is indirectly responsible for bankrupting the city's health insurance fund!"

To Emma, she amended, "I'll have to thank _him_ for that and not murdering your pet pirate centuries ago later. After reading Henry the riot act. I may actually attack him with a tree again, but this time he'll deserve it! Come along, Mother!"

"Can I put him in a stockade?" asked Cora, following to the line of people gathering their coats.

"What!? No! He's my son. He may be a pervert, but we are not torturing him!"

"You're no fun, Regina."

"Don't make me rip out your heart and re-curse it, Mother!"

"If you want me to put in a good word for you adopting your husband's illegitimate rape child, you will be kinder to me."

"I don't think Archie is going to even consider a word from the woman who fake murdered him and had him tortured by a pirate!"

"Oh, please, you and the pirate did a lot worse, and everyone here threw you a heroes' parade for whining about the unfairness of your lives. Of course, a majority of them probably had syphilis and monkey herpes at the time, so perhaps it would be best to triple magic lock the doors, lest they come to their senses and decide to burn your at the stake as justice would demand. Who knows how much of that spilled fairy dust was scooped off of the street, after all. I've seen the way that paper boy Timmy eyes the house as he peddles past. One morning he might dose you and stab you with that gardening spade you keep laying around."

"The paper boy is not plotting my murder, and gardening helps me keep calm!"

"You don't seem particularly calm."

"IT'S HARD TO GARDEN IN THE WINTER!"

As the two women exited, Emma rubbed her temples, trying to work out the headache that seemed almost constant since she awoke.

And the approach of her parents did nothing for her stress levels.

Emma groaned.

She loved them, but... Ugh. At least Granny had been left to heard her siblings out, so he didn't have to deal with playing stroller for her leaky-diapered sister again. By the second kid, one would think that Prince Charming could finger out how to put on a diaper, even the hippie cloth kind her mother insisted on to be more Enchanted Forest authentic. Her mother also made baby food. Which could be great if she spent as much time actually feeding her kids as she did at the store picking out weird foods to puree.

Her parents just refused to see that they made the whole parenting thing ninety percent about _their hopes and dreams and needs and fears and public appearances_ instead of, you know, actual unconditional love of their children for the kids' sake. Which she should have figured out a long time ago. Frankly, between her self-promotion of questionable parenting skills and trying to put a bullshit positive spin on ever bad thing in life, her mother was like the Gwyneth Paltrow of the Enchanted Forest.

It had to be the brain damage, Emma decided, that prompted her to wear those stupid 1950's dresses her mother picked out for more than just the one _humor your giggly still-baby-brain-shrunk mother_ time.

Or put up with the co-Sheriff thing. Honestly, that aggravated the fucking shit out of her. She seriously wanted to fire her father with his damned Don Quixote complex and unhealthy obsession with saving damsels to prove his courageous machismo. But then she'd have to find a replacement since she was on medical leave, and it would cause more family tension and drama she didn't need.

"Things seem to be wrapping up here," said David, "if you're ready to go home?"

"Yeah, sure, if you'll just drop me off-"

"I told you, Emma," Mary Margaret interrupted, "you're staying with us and using the downstairs room until you're up on your feet again. You can't stay at your place _or_ at Granny's alone! And I don't think you want Henry to be the one to help you in and out of the shower."

Emma sighed. She'd only just gotten out of the hospital, but had expressed a desire to move out of her apartment and find a new place... which she couldn't really do until she was recovered. Henry had relocated his stuff to his room at Regina's, so it was just her few boxes of stuff that she'd previously kept in her office at the Sheriff's station to keep her mother from snooping, since her room at the loft hadn't come with a lock on the door. It really was kind of pathetic how few personal items she had even with a place of her own. Even in New York while memory-less she'd gotten a pre-furnished apartment that only needed an end table - and that was probably because Walsh crashed the joint and stole it. She just wasn't good at picking things out and making them match - or getting attached to things that had little meaning - so she'd let Killian go crazy with nautical crap.

"Don't want to find out the Kid's got an oedipal complex on top of everything," she finally muttered. "Fine."

As her parents helped her up with her crutches, Emma considered that, perhaps, the biggest irony of all was that she _hated_ boats.

* * *

AN:The title is a nod to _Glee_ , another show that became a pile of shit. Got another HIMYM jab in there. If you didn't catch it, Emma's "hallucination" was Cora. Much as I'd love to see Regina and Cora at Zelena's prenatal appointment with a snarky Dr. Whale, we're not going there. My apologies. Maybe a stand-alone later.

Next up: Is Henry really a little pervert?


	13. House Rules

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN: HOUSE RULES  
**

(In which the consequences of Henry's pervert-ness are revealed and Emma finally questions her own parenting skills.)

"Stop picking your nose," Emma growled as she pulled into the driveway of Regina's house.

"Bite me," Henry shot back and got out of the backseat before the car had even fully stopped.

"HEY!"

In the passenger seat Regina let out a sigh. "My mother once said, when I attempted to blame her for my problems, that all parents screw up their kids."

"Do you believe that?" asked Emma, and Regina shrugged.

"Most things my mother says come with an ulterior motive, but in this case? Maybe. At least in this family."

With those words, Regina got out of the car and Emma was left alone as the former Evil Queen hurried after Henry who was refusing to take off his muddy sneakers on the front stoop.

 _"You do NOT want to test me further!"_

 _"Whatever. I gotta take a leak!"_ Henry shot back and brushed past her into the house, Regina following and the door slamming after.

Emma sighed. What a miserable day. Everyone at the hospital had looked at her like she was a terrible mother, and the truth was, she didn't know how to be a mom. That much had been clear from the moment she got to Storybrooke and was reinforced when she regained her real memories. New York Super Mom Emma was just Transplanted Super Mom Regina Memories Emma. So, she'd focused on her future with Killian and somehow had failed to notice her son was changing, and not in just the going-through-puberty-freakishly-fast-due-to-portal-anomalies way.

Regina said it started way back at the beginning of Operation Mongoose, that the kid was displaying slightly sociopathic morality on how to go about getting everyone's happy endings; she'd blamed it on a mix of genetics from Rumplestiltskin and hanging out with Killian. (Never on her own anti-nurture approach to early motherhood, of course!)

The more Emma thought about it, the more she considered that she never should have let Regina back into Henry's life so quickly (or closely). While the other woman had seemed to be generally trying to be a better person and earn forgiveness for her crimes after the Cure broke, once her mother showed up (the first time), it was just a lot of regressing and whining and blaming everyone else. Other than accepting that Henry was _their_ son, she'd glommed back onto that "I deserve a happy ending and it's everyone else's fault that I didn't get it and had to kill people and I don't give a fuck about anyone but me" attitude that was just so Cora. The woman was a sociopath, just as Emma had originally pegged her. And sure, she was a _high functioning psychopath_ , but she wasn't a crime solving genius who knew better than to get into romantic relationships either.

And Henry needed an intervention.

It turned out that besides perving on girls, he was cheating at cards, dice, and _cockfighting_ in some illegal gambling den Hook had set up above the Library and used for his "boys night out" meetings when she was on Night Patrol!

Also, Henry needed a shitload of antibiotics.

Because besides perving on girls, he'd slept with Ava Zimmer, a fellow delinquent who, at seventeen, was apparently voted on the high school website's message board "Most likely to be sporting a Herpes beauty mark and give birth in the gymnasium bathroom at senior prom".

It was no wonder the Jock Itch powder wasn't working.

Emma had never been so embarrassed, having to take her fifteen year old kid to get tested for syphilis and monkey herpes!

And she'd been _pregnant in prison_.

* * *

AN: Chapter title is a nod to Gregory House. I opted out of Dr. Whale mentioning Lupus, so I hope this appeases House fans. "All parents screw up their kids" is House's motto from the Season 8 episode "Parents". It should be the subtitle for OUAT.

Next up: A day at the Sheriff's Station.


	14. Crabs

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN: CRABS**

(In which Emma contemplates the geopolitical reorganization of Storybrooke and The Bug is having a bad day.)

"'I can't believe I'm sitting in space jail with you of all people.'"

Emma looked up from the file on her desk to her father standing in her office doorway. "What?"

"It's what that stoner said to his other stoner friend," David explained, frowning. "You know, the call last night? The meth lab in the old storm cellar."

"Oh... yeah... Mr. Clark... er... Sneezey called it in...?"

"While I was on night patrol. The guys were acting twitchy. Sneezey said he asked them, 'Why exactly do you need chloroform at 2AM' and they ran for it. I tracked them to the farm and entered the storm cellar just as the cook was saying 'I'm like seventy-five percent this won't explode on us.' Thankfully, it didn't explode until I'd cuffed them both in the back of the car."

"Uh-uh."

"' _Uh-uh_?' I just told you I almost _died_. Emma, have you heard a thing I've said?" David asked in an annoyed tone.

"Sorry, I'm a bit distracted," Emma apologized, and when her father huffed, rolled her eyes. "Oh, _come on_ , you almost die _every couple of weeks_. It's like your thing. Regina conjures fire balls, Mom spills secrets, you risk your life and barely avoid death. At a certain point, it's just hard to be shocked and/or relieved."

David crossed his arms and gave her a smug look before retorting, "You could ask Gold - _or Mulan_ \- where he moved, you know. And _don't_ pretend you aren't 'distracted' thinking about Neal leaving town and chugging some forgetting potion. You don't _know_ that he took it. Maybe he's just waiting for you to track him down."

Emma sighed. She'd gotten the leg cast off a week ago, thankfully, and her parents had decided it was time to look for a new place with two kids in the Loft - which made staying there a nightmare - and had already bought and moved into The Apprentice's creepy old mansion of empty books and portals to unknown dimensions - which just sounded like a disaster waiting to happen with two small kids, but that was how The Charmings rolled. Unfortunately, she worked with her father, so she couldn't escape him nagging her about Neal. She was surprised it had taken him this long, though he did have more patience than her mother who acted like a Pomeranian on crack at the barest whiff of anything that might be vaguely construed as romantic tension.

It was annoying to put it mildly. As soon as Neal died and her brother was named, _her_ Neal was never talked about. He came back from the dead, but her parents pretty much ignored him. So did she, but that wasn't the point - she had brain damage, after all, and they'd apparently tested negative for syphilis - unless they were lying and her mother got it from Whale who'd probably banged every woman in town and then gave it to her father, and maybe Regina was keeping their medical information under wraps because her and Emma's parents seemed to have some weird quid pro quo thing now instead of the mutual distrust and attempted murder.

Regardless, the point was their hypocrisy and operating under this "we just want whatever you think is best and will support that until you don't know what you want and then we want you with someone because single people are losers" mentality.

When Emma found Neal in New York, her parents were all about her feelings for him, and how she needed to see if there was a chance. Then he died and they were blink-and-you-missed-the-respectful-mourning-phase quick to pair her up with Killian, because he was there for her. Really, he was just creepily always there without being asked and often when he was specifically told to beat it, and it was annoying... until it wasn't annoying, in part because her mother was just so damned matchmaker-y, like an old Jewish lady, but without any of actual life's wisdom. But, you'd think, if her parents were this epitome of true love, they'd have been able to know counterfeit romance from the real deal. Instead, as the _product_ of true love, she was supposed to have some insight, but she'd been completely oblivious and let down the people she truly loved because of some fucking STDs! That was _not_ in the "True Love Obstacles" handbook!

So, the last thing she needed was her father's advice, the man who was an indecisive douchebag under the Curse and then afterward immediately transitioned to trying to emotionally blackmail her into returning to the Enchanted Forest where she could find happiness - and Henry could grow up without knowing his father, of course, even though he'd technically be a bastard and thus couldn't inherit anything in that world, but hey, monarchy!

David liked that system of government far too much... but her mother seemed rather indoctrinated into it as well, and who would have ever thought _Regina_ would be the more democratic mayor? And now they were a shit-heap of city-states with different "ordinances" that she had to enforce which meant a ton of paperwork. And, apparently, she was no better equipped to deal with it all when Dr. Whale gave her a clean bill of neurological health than when she was hopped up on horny spirochetes.

"And what would that accomplish?" Emma sighed. "Even if Neal _did_ still remember, I'm sure he'd _love_ to hear all about how the kid who doesn't care about him has turned into a pervert, no thanks to _you_ , Robin, August, and _Killian_ ," she accused, and her father sputtered at that.

"I have no idea-"

"You _pressured him_ to start dating too soon _and_ you told him to follow the girl around, to not take no for an answer, if she wasn't interested!"

"I didn't exactly say-"

"That's how his hormone-raging teenage brain interpreted it!" Emma cut him off again while standing up. "You're just lucky he got treated before the damned disease damaged his brain or I might be trying to keep Jefferson from murdering Henry for raping Grace instead of just stalking her! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to meet with my ex-boyfriend to see if he can convince the other former flying ape residents to drop their wrongful death lawsuit before I pick up the Bug from getting the interior fumigated for crabs, and not the kind they cut up at the Cannery!"

* * *

AN: Crabs. Haha. To the Guest reviewer, don't despair. Zelena has some truth bombs to drop on Rumbelle. You just have to be patient and make it through the impending Swanfire mess.

Next up: This Henry-is-an-apathetic-little-punk theory begins to unravel as Emma makes a discovery and gets some harsh criticism from her son.


	15. Fate Is the Hunter

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN: FATE IS THE HUNTER**

(In which The Author retcons who maxed out Neal's credit cards... or Killian was lying. Both are equally likely and the truth will never come out, so just deal with it, okay? Jeez!)

Emma was fuming when Henry entered the apartment. After dealing with Walsh and the "Cannery Seven" late into the night without resolution, the last thing she wanted to wake up to was another argument with her son, but the universe had other ideas, and it looked like a civil breakfast before school was not to be. "Where were you? It's Saturday. I made pancakes."

Brows furrowing, Henry answered, "Mr. Tillman was giving me parallel parking lessons before opening the garage."

"Well, you can tell Mr. Tillman your lessons are on hold until further notice."

"But I have to pass driver's ed in school to get my licensee which requires ten hours of night driving, and no one else has the time to spare after work-"

"Yeah, well, I can't see you affording a car and insurance when you have thousands of dollars in credit card debt," Emma snapped, holding out a stack of papers.

" _You read my mail_!?"

"I opened it by mistake, and that's not the point. You've been using Neal's credit card since he died!"

"Well, he wasn't using it! And it's not like anyone filed a death certificate outside of Storybrooke!" Henry shot back.

"What happens when he tries to get a new one?" Emma snapped. "You've ruined his credit!"

"Well it's not like you'll have to worry about him coming back since he doesn't remember we exist!" Henry shouted. "And I was only using it to try and get his stuff back, because neither you or Grandpa Gold gave a fuck about it!"

Emma was struck speechless for a long moment, before she recovered. "You had your _father_ back and you didn't act as though you appreciated him!"

"Because I thought if I acted like a total jerk you'd _say something_ and you'd realize that _you were being a total jerk to him_!" Henry snapped. "And _maybe_ you'd realize that you'd picked the wrong guy! But you didn't! You were too busying making eyes at my boozing step-grandfather to even care!"

"I was _sick_."

"Or maybe you were just too wasted on his shitty rum!" Henry shot back. "If you really cared, you'd have saved Dad in the first place!

"And this 'ratty hoodie' is my dad's!"

With that, Henry turned and left the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

"Shit," Emma sighed.

After standing there a moment, her son's words and accusations sinking in, Emma made her way to the kitchen to the cupboard where she presumed she could find a bottle of McCutcheons, because even if her mother was almost like a Baptist in her dislike of hard liquor, her father still had a finger or two now and then after a hard shift. Unless, of course, her father took it with them, but to her relief it was there... minus her parents and siblings, of course. She could have tried to find another apartment, but tight as lodgings were with the whole Resurrection Crisis thing, it had just been easier. And, truth be told, Emma had hoped that the familiarity of the loft would help with the transition back to single life.

Right now, though, it was more disconcerting than comforting.

Like the couch she slumped onto with a glass of scotch, for instance. She remembered now sitting here giving her jealous then-boyfriend a pep-talk about August that was mostly bullshit, because really, she barely knew the guy and he'd never done anything remotely nice (short of dying prematurely before he could give her useful information because he spent most of his remaining life running away) to justify as grounds for friendship, because for some reason she'd been so desperate to reassure Hook of her feelings... maybe because she was trying to convince herself that she really did love him instead of just the idea of being loved so completely by someone.

There was also sitting here with Mary Margaret when they were just roommates, feeling for the first time in years like she had a friend and confidant, a relationship that had redefined her sense of purpose... only to be lost _immediately_ upon her breaking of the Curse, replaced by a mother she grudgingly came to love for all she'd endured yet, as a person, found she did not actually like the woman very much; and so maybe she had returned here because this apartment was a reminder of the friend she lost for a mother who was so much less than she'd hoped.

But it was also where she had her only real non-argument (or mortal peril) conversation with Neal. It was where they tucked Henry in together, the one and only time. It was where Neal said he believed in her, where he understood her ambivalence about her parents trying to emotionally blackmail her into going with them to The Enchanted Forest without her even having to tell him the details or even having fully formed in her own mind what made her so uncomfortable. It had been a quiet, understated moment of shared... something, something that had still been there, even when she'd tried to deny it, some understanding or kindred... sameness that made them just _get_ each other in a way that no one else had so easily read her... though she'd been far too emotionally a mess to really read through his defenses; or maybe she just hadn't wanted to, because it was easier to make him the villain of the story.

He wasn't though. Neal was the tragic hero, the tragedy in that his heroism always seemed to be for naught in the end... kind of like her own journey as a The Savior, really. It felt like she was forever a novitiate - tangled and stumbling in the robes of her order, a savior who had no guidebook and ended up hurting the people she was supposed to protect and save as much as they had, in turn, hurt her in some weird, twisted cycle that seemed to define both sides of Henry's family.

Emma looked with disgust at the glass in her hand as she recalled from somewhere that kids experienced grief in fits and starts, going through it with each stage in life, each monumental moment when they thought 'I wish _ was here'. She'd tried to put Neal behind her, and she'd thought that Henry had dealt with his grief, that he'd let go and moved on, but that had been selfish of her. Selfish because she wanted to forget. Selfish because she _knew_ better having gone through that in her own way, never having a dad _or_ mom there for her firsts. She'd grieved for what she'd never had in those moments that were supposed to be the happiest. Henry had grieved for what he'd had _only for a few days_ in those same moments, and probably that made it even more painful, in the way she'd known if she'd looked at her son when he was born, the years after, every time she saw a child the age he would be, a family doing what she might have done, it would have hurt more.

Neal had been right that they were messed up, that they _screwed up_ , but she hadn't kept her promise to _not_ do to him what he did to her and his father did to him. She'd continued that cycle, and that was just the worst part of it all.

* * *

AN: _Fate is the Hunter_ , chapter 2: "A Novitiate - Tangled and Stumbling in the Robes of His Order".

Next up: FINALLY we find out what Neal, or rather _Baelfire,_ is up to.


	16. Hop On Pop

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN: HOP ON POP**

(In which Baelfire contemplates Storybrooke's Library: AKA where books and knowledge go to die because fairy tale characters don't need books that aren't enchanted by sketchy scribes - and Henry emotes.)

A light rain had started to fall when Baelfire entered the library with a satchel slung over his arm. Part of getting acclimated to this world was learning its history, societal norms, and technology, and his papa had sent him shortly after his arrival to the Storybrooke Library to do so. In the weeks since, his papa's wife and the Librarian Belle had been testing his aptitude in various subjects, teaching him lesson material, and showing him how to use the machine called a _computer_ for writing his assignments, doing research, and learning about this Land Without Magic-

A land that was over a century more advanced than the one he'd spent six months in. And _that_ apparently wasn't this world at all but a timeless world of stories, and his papa seemed certain that the Blue Fairy had played the crooked cross on them. Ordinarily, he wouldn't trust his papa on such things, but now that his papa was no longer the Dark One and Belle had told him some rather shady things about Reul Ghorm - like how she had exiled a fairy to Neverland for trying to help a woman that she _needed_ to turn evil so that his papa could use her to cast the "Dark Curse" that brought everyone here _and_ tore apart a family so that a baby would be sent here to break it not with her parents but with a puppet she made that would abandon her so she grew up alone, embittered, and unattached to this world - well, Baelfire had to agree it sounded like she was a sketchy fairy in cahoots with that Sorcerer's Apprentice who'd had a mysterious beef with the Dark Ones that wasn't so mysterious anymore as he apparently had worked as a Buttoner for Merlin who'd created that beast!

There wasn't much to read about that business in here, though, at least not in the publicly accessible books that were about the Land Without Magic. Which was fine Bae as he'd had his fill of magic!

As usual, the library was deserted and even the lights in the computer lab were shut off. Belle had been excited about having transformed it recently from a storeroom into a room with the newest computers and _high speed Internet access_ that wasn't, apparently, common in the rest of the town, but her excitement had ebbed in the weeks since as it had become clear that no amount of her putting up fliers around town was drawing a crowd... or a single person, really. His papa said that most people here didn't want to acclimate to the Land Without Magic, had hopes that in spite of his insistence that what remanded of the Dark Curse's self-contained energy was not enough to replicate a "reverse Curse" a second time, they could still find a way. It seemed there was also a growing anti-technology/Land Without Magic customs movement spurred on by a group who came with the "Second Curse" (though it was technically the third casting) and without false identities/memories of this world and headed by some disenchanted royals who'd been shafted of power in Storybrooke, and they didn't like their kids reading about anything but their own world, which was their own written versions of what had happened, and highly inaccurate, no doubt, since only the manipulative, power-hungry royals and their advisors were literate.

The rest of the people who accepted running water and medication for a raging epidemic just didn't see the use in knowing about countries, cultures, and governments outside of a town they couldn't leave without some magic scroll containing a bullshit prophesy written by The Apprentice to manipulate a would-be-queen who was imprisoned and turned evil because she tried to save her sister from being raped... which made about as much sense as the Enchanted Forest's social system back in Bae's time, three centuries earlier. It was both a relief and a frustration that little had changed, though Bae was leaning more toward the latter the more he learned about the progressive state of this world and listened to Belle's lamentations about her limited opportunities leading to working for his father being the lesser of two evils. In some ways, it actually sounded as if things had gotten worse, since even lesser nobles in his time had status, and women served in combat... though, on the other hand, he doubted the later really counted when the purpose behind the egalitarian army and repeated lowering of the draft age was the genocide of the immigrant population of The Frontlands who'd settled there after fleeing Dumarlone during The Great Dragon War. It was no wonder his papa hadn't wanted him to fight, though Bae hadn't learned the truth until after the war had ended and the children came home, talking of the horrible blood magic and the rumors that it was being used to create a great and terrible weapon.

Which turned out to be the Dark Curse, centuries later repurposed by Bae's papa to transmute matter instead of destroying it like the magical version of this world's nuclear weapons.

His papa had also speculated that The Duke (or The King he served) got Zoso to create the disease that had turned people there crazy, though maybe it didn't progress as quickly as it should have without the twenty-eight year delay, since the first case, apparently, Bae's mother, who didn't really die, but run away with her lover, whom she infected, because she had slept with a lot of soldiers, pirates, and traveling salesman - just like Bae had heard from other people in town but hadn't wanted to believe until living on the streets of London chipped away at his innocence enough that hearing the truth, while disappointing, was not really a great surprise. And though it was something of a blow to be the son of the town coward _and_ the town whore who'd spread her disease down through the generations as the worst family legacy ever, Bae supposed that, at least, by being born before his mother became a lose woman (and before The King expanded his biological weapons quest beyond poisons) and falling through that portal a virgin, he'd escaped acquiring it.

Thankfully, Bae had also never done anything with the Dollymops in London, not enough to get even the regular sort of glim. And Mr. and Mrs. Darling would have tanned his hide if he'd tried "putting Nebuchadnezzar out to grass" with Wendy as the chaps said, though Bae didn't think of her like that. He might have had a bit of a crush on Morraine, but she'd apparently married and had kids and died three centuries ago, so if he wanted to find love and start a family, it would be in this world... or whatever muddled version of his home world and The Land Without Magic that Storybrooke housed, unless they could find a way to return, but that was unlikely, depleted as the Dark Curse was, thanks to Peter Pan... who apparently was Bae's evil grandfather and thankfully not among those who'd returned from the dead, perhaps because he'd been artificially outwitting his time to kick it for centuries. That his own grandfather had him kidnapped to screw with his papa, his papa also said was likely some dealing of The Blue Fairy's, since she'd used another boy being kidnapped to Neverland as a means to destroy Pan's Shadow. Shadey, indeed!

It was probably a good thing then that the fairies had limited power here. One thing that _had_ changed in three centuries was Reul Ghorm amassing an army of lesser fairies who sold magic wishes as a commodity, which Belle equated with drug cartels, as poor and pedigreed alike became reliant upon fairy godmothers (or the Dark One) to achieve their goals rather than hard work and/or collaboration. The lack of any industrial or sociopolitical revolutions, she believed, was due to dependence upon magic, and the fairies specifically, who also used Dwarfs and slave labor and spread the rumor that giants were blood-thirty beasts the fairies defeated to save humans who owed them a great debt of gratitude, when it was really that the giants were peace-loving vegetarians who disagreed with the fairies wanting to give humans magic and occluded themselves after stealing the original Dwarf Gold that the Ogres pillaged from their smaller brothers' mines during the Great Dragon War so that humans couldn't drain the magic from it for evil purposes. In response, the fairies stole a bunch of magic beans from the Giants as a "fuck you" before the Giants put up better anti-fairy magic security on their beanstalks... which by modern times had been reduced to just one, what with humans looking for ways to bypass the security to steal the gold and magic beans and murdering the giants, and the fairies continuing to say how great it was that the threat had been eliminated! Tinkerbell, the exiled fairy, was apparently one of only a few who'd defied the Blue Fairy and during her time in Neverland found out that the most expensive commodity of "pixie dust" that was used to "find true love" was actually a highly addictive narcotic and hallucinogen... which Bae's papa suspected was the reason this Regina Mills and her husband Robin Hood fell ridiculously in love after knowing each other for a day... and was possibly part of why her former nemesis and step-granddaughter fell for a pirate, then got syphilis from him - it would be just like Pan, he'd said, to dose everyone with pixie dust while they slept, for while it made children fly, it made adults "horny as fuck".

Belle had socked his papa in the arm for swearing in front of him! It was rather funny!

While Bae had never considered having a stepmother, he liked Belle. She had to be a bit dim or desperate in matters of romance to have put up with his papa as the Dark One for so long, and maybe had suffered that Stockholm Syndrome he'd read about from her captivity in the Dark Castle, but she was kind and his papa seemed to at least be trying to curb his desire for power, and they were both helping him to adjust to this world, so Bae was happy for them both and hoped they succeeded in having a child, as he'd love a little brother or sister... just as long as the kid wasn't as insufferable as the little brats that belonged to the group of giggly women who loitered under the library's large overhang with their prams, sipping giant cups of coffee and talking about _The Real Housewives_ , while their children screamed like banshee and spit up on clothes that looked more expensive than anything Bae had ever owned and entirely unrealistic for babies to wear, like they were little girls' dolls or something instead of live humans. These people _were_ crazy!

0And, at least, here in the library, Bae was safe from them, even if it was getting a bit lonely now that he figured he could carry on a conversation without looking foolish. He just had to pass the last of Belle's grade level placement exams - since the school didn't have one and she felt was academically "run like an under-funded public school in the hood" but that didn't mean Bae was going to "coast by on the bureaucratic apathy of his teachers and administrators" if she had anything to say about it. Belle was definitely 'mom' material, and it was nice to have a mother who actually gave a crap about his well-being. Besides, he liked books and learning, even if he wasn't the introverted type like her to be perfectly find burying himself in the stacks all day without human contact.

Soon, Bae thought with purpose as he let himself into the library's small break room to put the sack lunch that Belle had made him in the refrigerator.

 _I am going to live in the present, embrace this new life, and make the most of it_ , he repeated his new motto with conviction.

As he headed back toward the table where he'd left his bag, Bae paused upon spying another backpack on a table along with a winter coat and a scarf he recognized from the school uniform.

He felt both excited and nervous. Other than talking briefly with Mr. Tillman's kids last week - Gretel was grounded for having done something bad and Hansel had some sort of music lesson - Bae hadn't interacted with anyone his age. Other than his papa and Belle, he hadn't really interacted with adults either. He wasn't really sure the carpenter Marco and his grown son August who came over to the house to fix something, the younger man spending most of the time asking Baelfire weird questions and being shot warning looks from his papa counted; his papa later warned him that August was the puppet from the story he told and a liar and a pervert and a thief who had way more venereal diseases than just the magical ones plaguing the town and not trust him.

Curious, Bae walked into the stacks toward what sounded suspiciously like a sniffle and rounded a bookshelf to find a boy about his age, perhaps a bit older, sitting on the floor by a stack of unshelved books that Belle had brought back from the Mommy & Me class at Granny's. The boy, who turned out to be both lanky and tall, sprung up from his spot, grasping a book.

"Are you okay?" Bae asked.

"I'm fine," the boy responded a bit snappishly - and nasally. "I was just looking for something for a book report. I found it."

Bae's brows lifted. "You're writing a book report on _The_ _Compiled Works of Dr. Seuss_?" he asked, bemused, drawing a startled and sheepish look from the other boy.

"Um... it's for my uncle..."

"Your _uncle_?" Bae asked, confused.

"He's twelve years younger than me. You know. Little Prince Neal? And, yeah, I know it's weird, but this whole town is weird. And why do you care, anyway?"

It took a moment to work past the boy's hostility to his actual words and then Bae put the pieces together from what he'd been told, mostly by Belle, of the town's leadership structure. "Oh, you're Henry Mills, the son of the Sheriff and the Mayor. That must be odd, having two mothers."

Henry snorted. "Yeah, well, it's not like _that_ , though they'd probably have been better matched than with the assholes they ended up marrying. The only really good guy in my family was my dad, and he left, and it's my fault," he admitted miserably. "He was gone for so long, and it wasn't his fault, and no body even looked for him, we just assumed he was dead, and then I was a total jerk, but it's not because I was mad at him, not really. Well... maybe at first, but mostly it was because my step-dad was just a gloating prick who kept rubbing it his face that he got my mom while my dad was away and my mom, she acted just like him, and they were just so awful that I thought if I was too, they'd have to see what selfish creeps they were being! But they didn't. So, my parents had a big fight and my dad left. Turns out they both had frigg'n syphilis AND herpes that made my mom a horny idiot! But once you leave Storybrooke, you can't get back, not without this stupid scroll, and he's really good at disappearing. My mom's really good at finding people, but I don't think she even really cares and even if she did, he said he was gonna use magic to forget all about us and everything. I should have told him that I didn't mean it then, but I was sure my mom would snap out of it. And now he's gone and she just sits in her office throwing pencils at the ceiling or at home drinking, and don't even get me started on my _other_ mom and her creep husband that I thought was my childhood hero from the stories I read in this world before he turned out to be a massive loser who's screwing over his first wife that my killed before my aunt went back in time and killed her instead, and now they're both alive again and I have had enough of my family's fucking drama!"

Henry concluded this with a world-weary groan as he shoved his Dr. Seuss book back onto the shelf.

"I'm sorry, " said Bae. "My mother wasn't great either. All I remember about her is that she yelled and drank a lot and was pretty horrible to my papa. She was always threatening to leave him for someone stronger and braver and better looking until she finally did, though I think she had a very skewed definition of 'bravery'." He shrugged. "Belle says she was probably just a really shallow and selfish person who felt trapped by society's treatment of women as chattel forced into arranged marriages to have babies and took it out on my papa and me instead of trying to change things, which doesn't make it right that she left me to rot in a war-torn wasteland. Some people just shouldn't be parents."

Frowning, Henry responded, "Yeah, like all of the parents in my family! They all _suck_ at it! Though my birth mom wasn't always like that. Between magical crap and getting monkey herpes from her boyfriend and then neurosyphilis from my dad's step-dad, and possibly being high on pixie dust, which might actually be my fault for sprinkling the stuff around to fly, though to be fair, Pan manipulated me into it and I had no idea how long the stuff stays potent or that it makes grown-ups horny as fuck..."

Bae nodded at that, remarking, "I suppose I should be glad, in a way, that I drown in the Never Sea before meeting Pan."

That gave Henry a start. "You... wait... are you one of the...?"

"Recently undead," Bae confirmed, "but not in the zombie apocalypse kind of way. I have been brushing up on my Land Without Magic pop culture with Belle's help."

Henry's brows furrowed. "I didn't know any kids had come back... though Hook had seemed worried that Rufio that might pop up and poke dreamshake holes in his bullshit story that he killed the kid to save my dad. Well, and his first wife. I'd _wished_ she came back, just to clue my mom in on what a lying creep he was, but she'd have probably made my family's life miserable, anyway and tried to poison my mom with dreamshade to get my step-dad back or something. Apparently, she convinced my stepdad to go back to Neverland to get the stuff that killed his brother to use to kill their enemies. She was like a real stone-cold bitch. They were totally made for each other. Then ever since _we_ went to Neverland, he started trying to transform my mom into her personality double, like he was picking up where he left off when his evil first love died or something. So, you know, my family is fucked up"

"Ah." Bae nodded. "I heard something about your family all going to Neverland, because you were kidnapped. I'm really sorry about that. It sounds like it's a truly horrible place. And... um... that your family has had issues ever since your return."

"Yeah, it was and they do. Worse family vacation in the history of family vacations."

The sound of stilettos and a call of, " _Baelfire, are you here_?" interrupted them. Ordinarily, you weren't supposed to shout in libraries, but since no one ever came in, Belle was pretty lax with that rule.

Bae turned toward his stepmother, calling out, " _I'm in the stacks. I'm just talking with-_ " He turned back, but the boy was gone. Hurrying out from the stacks, he saw the edge of the taller boy's scarf billowing on the way out the door.

Belle, emerged from the elevator with a stack of books from the second floor storage, looking toward the closing door in confusion. "Oh, no, did I miss someone?"

"It was Henry Mills," Bae answered, "though I don't think he was here for books."

Sighing, Belle uttered, "Oh no. I'll have to call Emma... and Regina."

"Why?" Bae asked, confused. "I know Papa doesn't seem to like either of Henry's mothers, and he said the boy was a bad influence, but he seemed quite nice. I don't think he meant to be so awful as Papa said. He seems quite broken up about it, actually..."

"Well, I imagine it's not been easy for Henry," said Belle with a pinched look as she handed some of her books to Baelfire to shelve. "He's always been a loner, though I understand he did have a lot of friends when he lived in New York with Emma. But the other children tend to avoid him here, first because Regina was, well, the Evil Queen, then just as he was starting to make a few friends, Emma became the Dark One. It was really inevitable that he'd start acting out eventually, particularly as unstable as his mothers' marriages have been, between a murderous pirate and a lying thief. We wanted to take Henry with us on our travels, but everyone else was against it, so without Rumple... they'd gotten fairly close while Henry worked at the pawnshop and helping Rumple with his recovery while Rumple helped him cope with his mother becoming the Dark One. I sometimes worry that his family doesn't care as much about Henry as they care about how he can help them clean up their various messes.

"And, of course," she considered as she booted up the circulation desk's computer, "the other children can be quite mean, indoctrinated by their parents as they are into certain beliefs."

"Because of the Dark One and Evil Queen thing, you mean," said Bae.

"Well, yes, but it's a bit more complicated than that. You see, his parents never married, so by the Enchanted Forest standards, Henry is a bastard and unable to inherit his birthright, but his grandparents don't seem to see it that way, which rubs many people the wrong way, particularly the factions who want to transform Storybrooke into a replica of the Enchanted Forest - or find a way to return there. And though Snow and Charming apparently issued some decree of legitimacy, it's not as though that would change anyone's minds where such things as friendship or marriage are concerned. Which has made Henry something of a pariah, I think, not that any of them have noticed, loner that he always was - as if that was by choice rather than the other children _not aging_. As a result, he ended up with that other outcast Gretel, who's a rather homely girl by fairy tale princess standards, and a peasant besides, and I think the royal children have spread rumors that her parents were not married before her mother died in childbirth, and that's why they lived alone in the forest instead of the village. I don't know if it's true or not, but children can be horribly cruel."

"I know," Bae grimaced.

"Oh, of course," Belle said with a sympathetic look. "Anyway, I think Henry has often thought more about the happy endings of others, a lot like his father, and hoped that everything he saw as his own happiness would naturally fall into place. But that hasn't been the case. He championed to convince Emma to stay here more than once, for the good of his family, but they have not really treated him well in return, and he has not made the friends he thought he would, and the academic subjects he excels at like math and astronomy are considered near to useless by most Enchanted Forest people, other than for mariners, and it's not as though we can easily sail anywhere. Well, Rumple and I took that cruise, of course, and we offered to bring Henry along so he could see more of the world he was born in, but his mothers and Emma's parents refused, which I think he took quite hard besides. He'd really had his hopes up, even if he hadn't let on how much. Having an adventurous spirit myself, I understand what a crushing blow it can be to be essentially caged and only experience things through the recorded journeys of others. Henry might not have felt that at ten, when this mess began, but he's at that age... well... I'm sure you understand that as well. I know just being cooped up here is hard for you."

After a pause, Belle gave him a smile. "Rumple is just trying to keep you safe, Baelfire. But I know Henry could use a friend. Perhaps you can help each other."

* * *

AN: So, if you hadn't guessed already, Neal de-aged himself. Will Henry and Bae become pals? And what kind of crazy trouble could two teenage trouble-magnets get up to? Also, if you want to know what the heck Baelfire's Victorian slang means, check out . /Sophie/Castle/victorian_ .

RETCON ALERT: The pixie dust thing making adults horny, I came up with when editing this chapter yesterday and didn't go back to insert it in posted chapters, so Tinkerbell shared that theory with Emma while she was in the hospital, so it just hasn't been mentioned as of now, even though it happened, and even if it makes no fucking sense that it hasn't been mentioned, because it's kind of a big deal as a motivator for Emma's crazy behavior in Neverland. Deal with it, bitches!

Next up: The Princess Posse is on the prowl. And Emma is going to need therapy.


	17. Pawn Shop Wars

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: PAWN SHOP WARS**

(In which Emma has an unexpected reunion, Mr. Gold makes a threat, and Aurora's gonna cut you, bitch!)

After pouring all of the alcohol in the apartment down the drain, Emma found herself walking down Main Street. The rain had stopped falling, but it was still bitterly cold, just shy of freezing, and the bite of the temperature felt like deserved punishment. Her attempts to call Henry had all gone to voicemail, her texts unanswered, until she'd finally pinged his phone and found he'd arrived at school. And so setting the latest family mess aside until later, Emma set out for an unnecessary foot patrol, because she just couldn't take being closed up in the station with David for hours, listening to more "Adventures on Night Patrol" and "pearls of wisdom" on how she should be handling her private life. She might have forgiven her parents for Lily and what it did to her, but that didn't mean she'd _forgotten_ it or how that choice colored all of their other advise, particularly where it came to parenting.

And speaking of... The Princess Stroller Brigade was emerging like a pack of giggling hyenas from the baby supplies store across the street... and heading for the crosswalk.

With a jolt of sheer panic, Emma stepped into the first shop she came to, lest Ella or Aurora accost her _again_ to try and set her up on some date so she could get her happy ending in the form of a cute prince and getting in the family way _for realsies_. That she had ever enjoyed those Tupperware parties her mother threw _had_ to be the syphilis and monkey herpes. Zelena might have been _cray cra_ y, but the bitch _had_ pegged them all for being stuck in the fairy tale cliché that women needed men and babies to be happy. Of course, who would have thought a clinically insane woman would be right?

It was only after the door shut that Emma realized she'd ducked into the pawn shop... which she'd also been avoiding since the accident - although, to be fair, she'd been avoiding Gold for a lot longer than that. When he awoke from his coma thing, she'd cried with relief at having proof she could survive being the Dark One, and she had wanted to believe that no matter what, as long as she had that one kernel of love in her heart for Henry, that she would come out of it. But she'd subsequently not talked to Gold about it, because she also knew that she had let the love she had for his son die and was replacing it with love for a man he despised. And because after his "you always make the right choice" speech, she _knew_ that she hadn't, and if she'd gotten her head out of a certain pirate's ass, she could have worked together with Gold instead of further fucking over his son's sacrifice by _becoming the Dark One_.

Thankfully, when she turned, despite the OPEN sign, Rumplestiltskin was neither behind the counter nor did he emerge from the back room to yell about interruptions. Emma ducked behind a large stack of books as the Princess Posse reached the sidewalk, just in case they saw her and tried to drag her out to Granny's parlor for Mommy & Me class. Only after they passed by did Emma let out a sigh of relief.

"Can I help you?"

Startling at the voice, Emma jumped and knocked over the book stack as she turned to face a lanky kid with dark eyes and shaggy brown hair. He was a couple of inches shorter than Henry, but probably around the same age, give or take a year. Her son had hit some freakish accelerated puberty after they got back to Storybrooke, so he was pretty much "more mature" than all of his classmates, hence, she supposed, hooking up with a slutty older Goth girl.

"Yeah, ah... no... sorry," Emma stammered out, embarrassed and quickly began picking up the books along with the unfamiliar boy that she figured must have taken over when Henry showed no interest in resuming his job after Gold and Belle returned from their second (and longer than one day) honeymoon.

"Were you hiding from those women?"

Emma flushed. Well, now it was even more embarrassing. "What? No, don't be silly. I was just... um... I really needed this book."

" _A Thousand and One Uses for Anthropomancy_?"

"Ah, yeah," Emma nodded. "I'm really into Anthropomancy."

"So... you sacrifice goats and gut them and use the pattern of their spilled entrails to predict the future?"

Emma decided right then she was going to gut Gold and spill his entrails. Who the hell carried shit like this? She set the book back on the stack. "Okay, Kid, you got me, I was hiding from the Pregnant Princess Pack, okay? They keep trying to peer-pressure me into joining their group by trying to make me feel guilty that I'm not married to some prince and pregnant with a little heir to the throne that I can tote around to pedicures and taco parties even though I'm only recently, ah, widowed and getting over an apparently hysterical pregnancy. But if you don't have a ring on your finger and a bun in the oven, you're not fulfilled as a woman according to that bunch," she scoffed.

"So, they're really all princesses?" the kid asked. "They don't look like princesses."

"Yeah, well, technically I'm a princess. I tried the ball gown and tiara thing a couple of times. It's overrated. I'm sure the lot of them would strut around in the stuff, though, honestly, if Regina hadn't passed a law against regal attire in public on the off chance some outsider gets in and thinks we're all crazy... although, honestly, most of the population here does seem crazy either from the syphilis epidemic or... just... reasons."

She set the last book on the pile. "So, are you... ah... Gold's stock boy? Are you from the Second Curse group or one of the Lost Boys? Honestly, I was kind of preoccupied in Neverland. I'm sorry, you know, if I don't... ah... remember your name..."

"Well, I guess I'm kind of his stock boy if you mean I help keep track of the shop's supplies. But, I'm not a Lost Boy. I'm Rumple...er... Mr. Gold's son. Baelfire."

It took a moment to process and then Emma startled back, knocking the stack of books over again... just as Mr. Gold walked in with a take-away bag from Granny's.

Gold looked between them and then stiffly handed the bag to _his son_ ordering, "Bae, why don't you take this into the back while I talk to Sheriff Swan."

"It wasn't her fault-"

"I'm sure, but we have business to discuss."

Baelfire looked uncertain, but nodded and disappeared through the curtain.

Emma found that her heart was hammering so hard she didn't hear half of what Gold said as he somehow hauled her outside onto the sidewalk.

"That... you... that's... Neal?" Emma croaked out.

" _Was_ Neal," Gold corrected. "He made the choice to become his younger self. As far as he remembers, he drown in the Never Sea and was resurrected with the others, which isn't exactly a lie. It seemed kinder than having to recollect centuries of imprisonment in Neverland, never mind the knowledge that his mother left him for the pirate that you _also_ left him for," he spat.

Emma lurched back again, her gaze falling. "I didn't know that Milah was Neal's mother. And I was _sick_."

"And we were all possibly suffering from pixie dust hay fever in Neverland, but the fact remains, you stuck your head in the sand... or up your ass. Ignorance is bliss... until it isn't," Gold retorted. "You wanted the bad boy, and now you have to pay the price of that magical love affair."

"But... can't you turn him back? I mean, August-"

"Was a puppet given sentience by magical wood and transformed back into a boy by the Blue Fairy so no one would question his motivations further for August sending Neal away from you. I may not have full proof, but I'm quite sure Pan. The Apprentice, and that blue bug were all behind it in some fashion."

Emma snorted. "Why the hell would they care?"

"Why did The Apprentice make his way to this world to tell Lily all about how her life was ruined because of you? Why did The Blue Fairy trick your parents or send Bae to a world other than the one she promised or exile Tinkerbell to Neverland simply for trying to keep Regina from turning evil? The lot of them have all been trying to destroy the Dark One in some fashion or another for centuries, and this world was the best place to accomplish that. But if you'd stayed with the son of the Dark One... well... things wouldn't have played out according to their plan. And you wouldn't be what you are now. Which is _certainly_ not someone with whom I want my son involved.

"I _never_ liked you," Gold told her coolly, leaning closer. "You are impulsive and hypocritical, just like your parents. And for being all about true love you seem to know _absolutely nothing_ about it. You all spout about your pure hearts, but now that I have one, well, let's just say I can see exactly what you are, and it will take a lot more than penicillin and a tetanus shot to cure what ails you, dearie."

Frowning, Emma demanded, "You _were_ lying, in the The Apprentice's mansion, when you said I always make the right choice, weren't you?"

"I said what you needed to hear to do what I needed you to do," Gold replied with a shrug. "But the truth is, _Miss Swan_ , you've made many terrible decisions - decisions that have hurt my son. If you had truly loved him in the forest that day, instead of harboring bitterness toward him and lust toward your pirate, you might have been able to save his life. If you had cared at all, when you traveled to the past, you would have tried to find a way to undo his death instead of spouting off hypocrisies while taking a stranger into the future. _Exactly_ like your parents when they took that egg, you cared only about yourself, and you can't blame that on a parasites eating your brain. _True love_ can overcome anything... accept your own resistance.

"So, if you care at all about Neal," Gold stated, "you will take that advice you gave back then - _you will leave it alone_. You will leave Baelfire be."

"And Henry?" Emma asked, voice trembling slightly.

"Well, I can't require you or Regina to keep your son away from Baelfire, but if Henry tries to corrupt _my son_ , I will take action. Is that clear?"

Emma swallowed and nodded. "Crystal."

Gold gave her an almost smile. "We both destroyed our happy endings by taking the easy path. No one has the power to rewrite our mistakes, not even us. We must simply accept our failures and find what solace we can in the wisdom that suffering brings."

With those parting words, Mr. Gold limped back into his shop leaving Emma adrift, faced with the end of a possibly she hadn't even really begun to entertain yet might be possible.

"Oh, Emma!" Aurora chirped, skipping over with her daughter, Rose, in one of those harness things and the kid wearing one of those stupid lacy headbands even though she had no hair... and it wasn't exactly protection against the cold. "You _must_ join us at Granny's! Ella's made up a new song-"

"Yeah, no, I'm busy," Emma uttered, brushing past her.

"But-"

Turning, Emma started coolly, "Look, I'm not one of you, okay? I thought I could be, but it turns out, I don't actually want to be. You're all just... just... stupid and annoying and riddled with herpes!" she exclaimed childishly before stomping off.

Aurora huffed indignantly. "Well, I never! Apparently, I was right from the start. What a rude and unbecoming woman. I suppose I should have known, marrying that pirate."

"I thought you said he was dreamy?" another Princess piped up, walking up to join her.

"Hmm, he did take my heart," Aurora agreed, smiling a little. "And rescued it for me. Very dashing."

After a moment lost in nostalgic thought, she shook her head. "Now, come on, we'll be late meeting up with the others... um... what's your name again?"

"You seriously don't know my name?" the ebony-skinned Princess huffed. "It's Tiana! I've been in your group for three years!"

"Really?"

Tiana glared, shouting, "God, you are all so racist! I don't know why I even bother. Go have your Chardonnay baby name party. I don't need you bougie bitches!" she snarled and then angrily pushed her stroller in the opposite direction.

A passerby gave Aurora a leery look and she pulled the dagger from inside her coat. "Don't make me cut you!" she threatened and the person scurried past.

Patting her daughter's back, the former Sleeping Beauty cooed, "Mommy doesn't want to hurt people, but she has to protect you and our kingdom's interests."

* * *

PLOT DISCONTINUITY WARNING: Wait, if Baelfire brought a sack lunch to the Library in the previous chapter, why is he at the Pawn Shop and Rumple is bringing them food from Granny's the same day? Is this one of those episodes where it took Emma an entire day to walk from one side of Main Street to the other? The fuck if I know!

AN: Some snippets of dialogue were inspired by twuwuvdearie's tumblr post "Let's Imagine an Unforgiven Emma" /post/118797225978/lets-imagine-an-unforgiven-emma which seems to no longer be posted there, sadly. I see Aurora as sharing the farm compound beliefs that those who have accepted life in Storybrooke are blasphemers who have turned their back on culture and tradition to accept a cursed existence defined by a horrible magic-less world and she's using Mommy & Me class to try to convert the other princesses. Poor Tiana. As you can tell, I think OUAT is almost blatantly racist at this point, making all the PoC props and plot devices for Whitie... and Regina, but her mommy is so white that together with her ginger-haired, white-as-rice half sister, and the use of "Henry" rather than "Enrique" for Regina's father, I'm pretty sure we're supposed to forget that Regina's got a Spaniard-y dad. Plus, given tiny Hispanic Lily grew up to be a giant of a white woman, sooner or later, Regina ought to age into an old Caucasian lady. At least Hispanic/Latino people on OUAT can grow up to be white people with screentime. Black and Asian characters are killed off or disappear forever.

Next up: Emma FINALLY goes to therapy! It's the double-episode of chapters: tediously long, unnecessarily convoluted, and with questionable editing that makes you wonder, "Did all of that come from one script, or is the writer trying to shoehorn in stuff from somewhere else just to fill air time?"


	18. Tediously Long Conversations

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: TEDIOUSLY LONG CONVERSATIONS ABOUT DEAD PEOPLE**

(In which four seasons of Emma not dealing with anything is finally addressed in a fanfiction trainwreck of a therapy session that gave The Author headaches to write.)

"I don't know what to do!" Emma exasperatedly told Dr. Hopper as she paced his office. "How did it get this bad? Am I bad mother?" she asked, worried. "Did I ignore Killian's bad influence on him to suit my own needs?"

"Honestly? Yes."

"That's not making me feel better!"

"I'm not here to make you feel better by absolving you of guilt," Dr. Hopper stated. "I went through the same with Regina when she first and _sadly_ only briefly engaged my services in helping her accept responsibility for the consequences of her selfish actions... before involving herself with a man who told her that no longer being that person absolved her of any responsibility for her criminal actions. Have you wondered why you and Regina have similar approaches to relationships?"

"If this is going to spiral into a 'Do you secretly have a lesbian crush on your own step grandmother?' then I'm outta here!"

"Well, I do detect a certain degree of possible bisexuality considering Lily's descriptions of your early encounters, but sexual preference is beside the point."

"Did you ever think maybe Regina opted out of therapy because you betrayed her doctor patient confidentiality?" Emma pointed out and the doctor sighed.

"You're trying to deflect, Emma, and that may work with your family members, but I am psychiatrist."

"Who got his degree from a Curse."

"After close to seventy years of being a the not-entirely-metaphorical-fly-on-the-wall in many a situation of human interaction. And don't even try to claim that being the Dark One gave you some sort of omniscience that exempts you from requiring these sessions. And stop trying to bring the subject back to Henry when you are mandated by the public health authority to resolve the matter of your medical situation. And, yes, that was an infection, but it is my job to assess your mental health in order to differentiate between any brain damage you incurred and other underlying psychological issues so that I can say, with certainty, that you have been rehabilitated to the best of Dr. Whale's ability, such that it can help his other patients. So, we are going to talk about what I want to talk about in these sessions, and you are going to be honest in the interest of helping your community recover from this epidemic, _is that clear_?"

Feeling like chastised child, Emma slumped back against the couch, crossing her arms. "Fine, whatever."

"Now you sound exactly like Henry. Have you noticed that when it comes to addressing personal issues, you tend to revert to a maturity level one would expect of a teenager, perhaps, say of the age at which you ran away from your group home only to be quickly betrayed by two people you trusted?"

"Not really."

Dr. Hopper made a note on his pad. "Why don't we get back to how youfelt about Neal turning back into a teenager with no memory of you or Henry?"

"I told you. Annoyed. _Pissed_. I should have been... consulted or warned or something! How do you tell a kid that his father would rather be a kid again than be his father?"

"I think you know that's not the reason Neal made that choice. I think you know that was the last choice Neal would have ever considered, but given what he had been through in his life, and seeing no place in yours and Henry's, it was the only option left in which he had a chance at happiness."

Scowling, Emma defended, "I was _sick_. I know that now. And I _hate_ it. I hate that he thought all of those horrible things about me and I treated him like crap, but it wasn't even really me. And I hate that because of that I just let Henry treat Neal like a jerk in his _operation whatever_ to snap me out of it by emulating his jackass stepfather. He thought I would realize that I was being a jerk. I didn't."

Dr. Hopper asked, "Why do you think you were being jerk?"

"Because of STDs. _Duh_!"

"Reasons _other_ than STDs."

"You're the shrink," Emma responded, defensive. "You tell me."

"All right. I think you have been repressing a great many things that cannot be blamed on a neurological infection. I think what happened the day of the accident was your PTSD from accumulated emotional traumas for which you never sought counseling and appear to have subverted so deeply that they were bound to manifest eventually and did so in a psychotic break precipitated by general paresis, a neuropsychiatric disorder _usually_ occurring in late-stage syphilis presenting with psychotic symptoms of sudden and often dramatic onset. Like raging out magically and beating someone black and blue with a broom."

While Emma scowled, Dr. Hopper continued, "You've only come to see me over the years to talk about Henry, but never yourself. Quite frankly, it gets frustrating trying to wheedle anything personal out of you, Emma. You're even worse than Gold."

"So why bother?" she grouched. "I mean, apart from court orders or whatever."

"Because you need to talk. Your child's father, your first love, is now a fifteen year old boy. Your husband, his stepfather, is recently deceased, in part due to actions you took during your psychotic break. Your son is acting out for reasons which are quite likely more complicated than some ill-conceived attempt at reverse psychology. And you have just discovered that a relationship you epitomized as true love was, in fact, precipitated in large part by a combination of a infections acquired from your last two lovers who used you as a means to their own end... which ended up being literal."

Dr. Hopper sighed, then amended, "Emma, you have never taken the time to compartmentalize all of the revelations in your life since coming to Storybrooke. Your nascent bonding with your parents was halted by their secret, for instance. You returned to Storybrooke with over a decade's worth of false memories that paint you as a super single mom who made all the choices you wish that you could have made without any negative consequence you anticipated and informed your choice to give up your son, a choice which defined the person you became on a _deep_ psychological level, the person who broke the Dark Curse, and have attempted to reconcile those two contradictory versions of yourself without any professional help, thus resulting in a laundry list of what seems to be poor choices made out of a misguided desperation to prove you can still be that super mom and without any bitterness toward Regina, and thus what seems to be a forced overcompensation of gratitude, for simply refitting her own memories to a basic framework of your life resulting in an amplification of the self-esteem issues you had originally. On top of that, you were the _Dark One_ , yet everyone _and you_ act as though that's had no lasting impact on anything, which I think we both know is _not_ true. Once the drama has passed, your family brushes things under the rug and refuses to address the impact, as though there is no such thing as an accumulative effect of repeated emotional trauma.

"You can't simply say that the past is the past," Dr. Hopper argued, "that people are not now who they were then, and just start over. It sounds nice, but life doesn't work that way. We all have baggage. And sometimes, you need to unpack it. And that's why you're here."

Emma harumphed, but didn't otherwise protest. He wasn't wrong. She'd known from the start that Regina's fake memories had messed her up, made her desperate to still be that mom while knowing that she never actually was, not on her own merit, and that just really _really_ sucked. But, at the same time, she was grateful for having memories, even if they weren't real. When she wasn't pissed at having those memories, because they just reminded her how great Regina was at the stuff she sucked at, especially when the older woman got over her (some) of her selfishness and actually proved herself capable of showing affection. It was just that much harder to compete!

"Have you asked yourself," continued Dr. Hopper, "why you never had a long-term relationship until you lost your memories - but even then you kept your distance?"

Shrugging, Emma responded, "I seem to target the impossible ones. With deadly accuracy? I dunno. Some spell before I was born that made me some tragic hero destined to be alone?"

"That, or maybe you've been protecting yourself?"

"Protecting myself? From heartbreak, misery, sexual violence and possible death?"

"From committing."

"I committed! I was with Walsh for eight months. I was _married_ to Killian!"

"And why were you attracted to Killian in the first place?"

"Pixie dust?"

"Pixie dust lowers inhibitions, it does not make one completely delusional and act against their nature."

After a petulant sigh, Emma answered, "He fought by my side. He saved lives. He apologized for his crimes and became a better person. He respected me and helped me be a better person too. I mean, apart from giving me syphilis, obviously, but I have him monkey herpes, so that cancels out."

"Emma, don't rationalize his behavior into a noble act to the point of fabricating motivations - and their outcomes when you know his motives were not genuine. Swapping STDs aside, he was a sociopath who was using people, murdering, and raping long before he met Milah - and it was those qualities which apparently attracted him to her, being herself a person who seems incapable of experiencing empathy. And as Dr. Whale said, Killian's progressing brain damage made himseem more empathetic, operating on a hormonally-based delusion, but even so, his motivations were purely selfish and you hardly became a better person due to his influence, but rather in spite of it, and I think even you would argue, that saying you are 'better' as a person now than you were before that relationship is a stretch. Or you wouldn't be sitting here dealing with the issues that drove Neal away."

Emma frowned, not liking where this was going. "Okay, I _thought_ Killian was helping me be a better person. Happy?"

Dr. Hopper made another note on his pad. "I'm curious why you thought he was helping you, Emma, when to my observations there was nothing remotely healthy about your interactions. From what I saw and others have told me, the conversations you had, which didn't begin with him offering you alcohol at your most emotionally vulnerable and conclude with some sexual interaction, were few and far between. The fact that you became aware of your father's family history of alcoholism before you even became sexually involved with Killian and that you already had a penchant to turn to it in moments of existential crisis, and yet continued this behavior, equating drinking with Killian during periods of intense emotional stress as romantic rather than deflecting and manipulative is troubling in and of itself. And even if you were in denial of your addictive behavior, given you time in the foster system, prison, and working as a bountyhunter who focused on helping scorned women, I find it hard to believe that you would consider it healthy to become involved with a man who reacted to you moments of emotional vulnerability by adding the mental and physical vulnerability of alcohol consumption."

Emma just shrugged uncomfortably and Dr. Hopper continued, "And more than just the alcohol, do you want to know what I observed of your relationship? I watched how Killian pursued you and how you reacted. Every time you refused him in some manner, he took 'no' to mean 'keep pushing until you get what you want'. I rarely witnessed any confrontation between you in which he didn't grab you to keep you from leaving, often in direct conflict with your statement to be left alone. I saw that he often made you uncomfortable using his hook in overly sexual overtures - and he continued to do so until you accepted that as affection. That he told Mr. Gold he wanted his hand back for the express purpose of physical intimacy at the end of your first date, a date he spent attempting to get you to drink while making inappropriate jokes about making you more pliable to his charms, should be telling. That he lied about Ariel and Eric all these years, using that matter with Ursula as leverage to get Ariel to keep quiet. That he manipulated his getting blackmailed into doing Mr. Gold's bidding to his advantage when he was one who neutered himself by making death threats against Belle _just so he could feel you up with two hands_ , should tell you the kind of man you 'loved'. Which isn't even including the mess of his getting cursed by Zelena, already under the delusion that you were his one true love after _one kiss_ and knowing one another for what amounts to a couple of weeks, and then being so certain you couldn't defend yourself against her, even though he was your single weakness that could lead to the nonexistence of your family, he still had to go with you. Just as he disobeyed your command as Sheriff and nearly got himself and Elsa killed by Ingrid, as though he again didn't trust you to handle the situation on your own and wanted the spotlight for himself, to prove himself a hero and redeemed, which speaks to his extreme narcissism and lack of empathy. And furthermore, his apologizes for all of his crimes and many times he defied your wishes, resulting in even more problems for you, the words were often parroting back something somebody else said to him in a habitually insincere manner that was singularly focused on getting you to not only forgive him but view him as either a hero or victim in need of sexual comfort."

After a pause, Dr. Hopper concluded, "You said Killian became a better person who respected you, Emma, but that's neither character growth nor respect. That's manipulation and entitlement."

"Spent a lot of time watching us, did you?" Emma grumbled.

"Well, it was rather hard _not_ to," the former cricket bluntly stated, "when you were almost habitually together, join at the hip - or more accurately, the lips."

She scrunched her face and huffed, "Okay, I get it, we made out a lot in public."

"But do you understand why? Do you see how unhealthy that behavior was?" Dr. Hopper prompted. "Because it's clear to me that Killian believed he was entitled to make you stop and listen to him, often when you had far more pressing and personal issues to deal with, and demanded that you trust him, get over any issues might have had so that you could move quickly to the part of the relationship he considered most important: physical gratification. That every conversation about your fears he twisted into being about what I would consider, given his history and completely contrary behavior up until the point at which he perceived you returned a physical attraction, were fabricated insecurities meant to lower your inhibitions, further facilitated by the addition of alcohol. Unless Isaac recorded his supply run tavern-visits wrong, did he not tell you he got women drunk to sleep with them?"

Emma let out a muttered, "I guess..."

"And yet, after you admitted you were afraid of commitment because of habitual loss, after very recently losing two men you had cared for deeply, he cajoled you, as he did in Neverland, as he did after your return from the past, into pushing down that insecurity in favor of showing him gratitude for his being present in your life. He advised you, he offered you a shoulder, but only as a means to end - his own gratification. You say that Killian helped you, but a handful of words, a flask of rum, and making out like horny teenagers is not helping. It's hindering by using sexual gratification and judgment-clouding subsistence abuse to distract from actually dealing with the deeper issues, the ones you have been burying for what I would wager is the better part of your life."

Emma frowned and Dr. Hopper continued, "Ask yourself, what would a real friend, someone who genuinely cared for you, have done in those moments, Emma? If Killian actually had cared about what you had been through, he would have thought twice about trying to start a relationship with you when you were so vulnerable. He would not have told you to get over your trust issues, grief, guilt, what have you, because he was as _indestructible_ _as a cockroach_. He would have given you space, expressed understanding that you were not ready to trust yet, to open yourself up in that way while reassuring you that you didn't have to worry about driving him away with your issues, your imperfections. Imperfections which he should have acknowledged as at least in part of your own making rather than denying you were at fault for anything and deeming you perfect. Add to that repeatedly declaring that his not falling back into criminality was all thanks to you is a terribly selfish and unfair burden to place on someone. So, no, I don't think that he helped you become a better person, Emma. I think he hindered you becoming a better person by telling you that you were an infallible person and manipulating you into deeming _his_ crimes absolved and _his_ flaws as somehow excusable or even _positive_ as viewed through some warped prism of an unrealistic love."

After another pause, Dr. Hopper said, "But the real issue is why did you trust him so quickly? Why, when he made you so uncomfortable did you accept that as affection? Given your history together in the Enchanted Forest with Cora, and your own past tracking down men like Killian, letting yourself trust him should have been a difficult task, a considerable issue for you, and yet you rather randomly, it seems, decided to trust a man who had shown himself, up until days before, to have constantly lied to you in order to protect himself and caused grievous bodily harm to people weaker than him who stood in the way of acquiring that which he desired - which turned from murderous revenge to you."

"I don't know," Emma groaned. "I was... I didn't want to lose anyone else. He... he told me I didn't have to worry about losing him, that he was good at surviving..."

"Not exactly the best way to address abandonment issues," replied Dr. Hopper. "No one can guarantee survival. You needed to come to terms with the root cause of your fears, not have them swept away by an empty promise and a kiss. He enabled your fears as much as you enabled his bad behavior. He showed a habitual lack of interest in who you are as a _real and flawed_ person, underneath the labels that have been assigned to you, and you - inexplicably it would seem to an outside observer - capitulated on every issue of substance in your relationship, particularly his dishonesty, even about matters that quite often placed you and the people you love in danger, by deeming him not responsible in instances when doing so was, quite frankly, irrational to the point of delusional - and well before, Dr. Whale has deemed, you would have suffered brain damage enough to impair your judgment to so severe a degree. That's not healthy, Emma. It's certainly not the romantic ideal that, for whatever reason, you and your parents decided to view it as, red flags and all."

After a pause, Dr. Hopper concluded, "I think we both know the truth of it, Emma, and given your upbringing, your time on the streets, in prison, and your choice of career that allowed you to pretend to be the object of affection for dangerous men without the commitment - _You like men who hurt you_."

Emma went stiff and her eyes flashed with anger, " _What!?_ That's not true!"

"It's not a criticism, Emma," Dr. Hopper reassured. "And I would imagine that the removal of your potential for darkness you trying to compensate through association with other people's darkness. It likely played some role in your attraction to Killian, as much as any illness, but that was resolved very early on in your relationship. And so to continue to do so after that wrong was righted, that's the real issue here. You're not bound by that spell anymore. So why did you continue living that way?"

"Um, brain damage, _duh_ ," Emma countered.

"Again, hallucinations aside, I think you know it wasn't enough to destroy your concept of right and wrong then. I think you were just in pain. I think now that the haze of your illness has lifted, you still are. And you should ease up on yourself. You don't have the patent on bad relationships, you know."

"Wouldn't it be cool if I did, though?" she snorted, earning an exasperated look from the shrink.

"Emma, the first person to trust in you other than Henry in years died in your arms as did your first love. Your almost fiancé was killed after you spent eight months with him, duped into feelings for someone who was not real. You were possessed by the darkest entity in all of the realms. And then, immediately after the imbalance between you and Lily that started the whole mess was resolved, you decided that you were supposed to settle down with the first man who was interested and not scared away by your destiny in spite of the atrocities he had committed and an obvious Narcissistic Personality Disorder that made everything of value about him, _including you_. To be drawn to that when you were incomplete and incapable of your own darkness is one thing, but to _still_ cling to it is troubling. It tells me that there are underlying psychological issues you have not dealt with. Issues which attracted you to him against any rationality."

Dr. Hopper tapped his pen against the pad and asked, "Is it because Killian still denied your capacity for darkness? Or that he was enamored of your destiny and that allowed you to deny one and accept the other without actually doing so yourself?"

Shrugging, Emma answered, "I know I can do awful things. I know that I have. And I don't need to accept it. I just have to stop psychos from killing a bunch of a people."

"I understand the battle against evil, but that's not the issue."

"Then there's no issue," Emma stated, becoming aggravated again. She didn't like talking about Killian, but she liked even less talking about what her being with Killian meant.

"Let me ask you this: who's fault was your destiny?"

"What do my parents -"

"So, you do hold them responsible."

"I... maybe."

"Maybe? I'm just curious. Your opinion."

"My mom mostly," she let out through a sigh. "She believed that she was better than Maleficent. That I would be better than her kid, but only if she made sure. She made the choice to steal that egg without caring what was inside of it and - pressured my father into agreeing with her. And even after that... she convinced herself and him that doing something awful would be inspiration to make them _kinder_ people and so that made them virtuous. Which is... which is what she said after I wasn't the Dark One anymore, for the things I did. I should use that awfulness as inspiration and it was just an unfortunate consequence of trying to do something good, so I was still virtuous."

"And you don't believe that?"

"I think being self-righteous about making a selfish choice is... I don't know... it's not right."

"So you think taking on the curse of the Dark One was a selfish choice? Even though you were protecting everyone? Even though if it had joined with Regina, her darkened heart might have fueled a far more terrible creature than what you became?"

Emma shrugged. "More evil, maybe, but not more _powerful_ and I think the later outweighs the former. And even if Regina would have been a worse choice, it wasn't _right_ either. It came down to that because of a lot of other failures that added up to one shitty choice that I wouldn't have made if I hadn't... filled up that emptiness."

"I see. Tell me about the emptiness?"

Frowning, Emma picked at Graham's bootlace on her wrist... which seemed silly to wear since he was alive now, but it was too frayed and stained to go back in his boot that she'd fitted with new laces before returning it with his jacket, dismayed that she'd let Gold throw out the rest of his things. A nasty habit they'd both carried forward with Neal, and she knew it was horribly selfish given her own sentimentality toward hoarding the little trinkets that marked various people and events, good and bad, in her life to care so little about other people's things... but then given her life, it had never felt like she had place in it for _other people's sentiments._

Emma let out a breath before answering **,** "It's like I had an empty space where the darkness was taken out. And even though I fought my whole life to rise above the bad things that happened to me, when I found out what my parents did, when I knew it was because of me that my friend's life sucked, that I _lost her_ as a friend because of it, it was like... that empty spot started to fill with all of the hurt, anger, rage and pain that I'd pushed down and avoided. It's like... this well of darkness began to pool inside me and fill that empty spot. And bringing back everything with my early life, withNeal and Ingrid and Lily and the pressure of being The Savior... it was just too much. And I made... I made bad choices, like killing Cruella out of anger... even if it was to save Henry. And everyone... they kept saying the darkness couldn't really touch me, that they would protect me, but... but they couldn't really. I had to save them. I always have to. I have to do whatever it takes to save the people I love, because I'm the Savior - even when it's at the expense of my own soul and _my_ happiness."

Dr. Hopper made another note. "Do you blame your parents for your having to make that choice? To sacrifice your soul to save them all?"

"No... I don't know... maybe," Emma conceded. "I think... I think they were the ones who were quick to call Gold evil and demand his banishment before anyone could ask him what was going on. And when I... when I was the Dark One, when they knew I was around they were so supportive, but when they didn't know I was there, all they did was lament about lengths they went to in order to keep me from going dark, and look where it got them, and then sigh and weep and play the sympathy card, pretending that they were the victims in this terrible story."

"So you feel like even though it was your choice to save them by that sacrifice, it was their choices that negated any other course of action?"

Emma shrugged again and looked down at her hands, remembering what it felt like to hold the dagger and feel the connection, like it was a tuning fork to some dark song inside of her, and looking down at it for hours on end, hating this thing that she'd become and wondering how she'd ever be rid of it. Wondering if Rumpelstiltskin ever felt like that, but unable to ask him because he was still in a coma. She'd sat at his bedside too, because Gold's hospital room was nice and quiet and calm and there was nothing to aggravate the darkness there. But it also made her think of Neal, and wish that he was there, because he was the only one who had experience with someone who _just_ became the Dark One, and she didn't know what she was capable of, who she might hurt without meaning to... but then she was glad he was gone too, because how disgusted would he be if he hated her _having magic_ only to have her _willingly become his worst nightmare?_

But had she really had a choice?

"I guess... I hate that I'm always the victim of other people's good intentions. Or maybe I hate more that none of them ever seem to see it that way."

"Well, villains are always the heroes of their own tragic stories," said Dr. Hopper. "But I think I see what you're saying. You wish your parents, Regina, everyone, would take responsibility for the consequences of their choices instead of blaming others for the choices they made in order to make themselves more heroic - or more victimized - than they actually are."

"Well, yeah," Emma conceded, "but I'd kinda like to just stop being the victim. The shit always falls on me from the day I was born. I get the power and responsibility, but not free will to use it, not really. Every time I try to do things my way, it goes wrong. Like, I have this power, but it's never any good for things I _want_. It's the _opposite_ and just makes things worse. And my parents say happy endings aren't always what you expect, and that doesn't mean they can't be just as good, but that's such a crock of shit, you know? You can make the best of what you're left with, but that doesn't mean it's going to be just as good or better than what you could have had if your life hadn't been repeatedly fucked up. "

Shaking her head, she concluded, "They're all obsessed with happy endings, but I can't even get a _happy beginning_ , you know? And it's like they don't remember that, or don't really care, because it was for the greater good, so it was justified. Like that just erases everything I went through and if they shove enough Enchanted Forest crap at me, I'll become the perfect princess they want me to be, instead of the person I became _because of their choices_."

The shrink made another note on his pad, then asked, "It sounds like you still blame your parents for putting you in that wardrobe?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"I'm sure it must have been very hard after discovering they abandoned you to save everyone else how quick your parents were to have another child, a child they then named for the recently deceased father of your child without consulting you or Henry."

Emma averted her eyes. She didn't like talking about her brother. She didn't like seeing him or getting anywhere near him. Her sister... well, she avoided her because the kid was a magical terror. But Prince Neal... he was a good kid. Which just reminded her even more of Neal.

"It wasn't a surprise," she finally said, knowing Dr. Hopper would push her. "I mean, in Neverland, my mom told my dad that... that the relationship she had with me, it wasn't what she wanted for their child. I was... I was great as a person, all things considered with how I grew up, and she was proud of me for that, but... it basically translated to, as _her_ daughter, I was a disappointment, and because she never got to actually raise me, I'd never be... enough. She couldn't love me the way she'd love a kid she'd raised, didn't want to try and form some real maternal bond after the fact. It was too late to give her everything she wanted to get, felt she deserved, out of motherhood. And I just... I didn't get that entitlement, because I _love Henry so much_ even before the fake memories, and I just don't see how that matters, how raising a kid from birth is the thing that defines _loving your kid_ or _being a mother_. It just seems so _selfish_ , and then... then Regina said when my magic went crazy, her first instinct was that I should get rid of my magic. And then finding out what she did to Lily...

"It was like, was she really doing any of it to _save me from being evil_ or hurting people or to _save herself from having an evil daughter who hurt people_? That's not what being a mother should be any more than Regina's screwed up, self-centered version, you know? It's supposed to be _selfless_ , that's what a hero is, _that's what a mother is_. But sometimes it feels like, like everyone here who got labeled a hero, it was just the label that douchebag Author or Apprentice gave them, and they don't deserve it. And instead of making me a better person, someone my son would be proud of, someone who could be a - a roll model to him, it's like you said: they just made one more self-righteous jerk with a savior complex."

Dr. Hopper tapped his pen on his pad. "I see. So, all those relationships of yours that you knew, subconsciously, were doomed - is it possible that just a little bit, you couldn't connect because you thought they were not worth it? Maybe you think you're better than them? Because of this 'self-righteous savior complex'?"

Emma scoffed. "What? Where the hell are you getting _that_ from? That's insane. I never wanted to be 'The Savior'. And I wouldn't have married Killian if I didn't think he was worth it. If anything I never thought of myself as anyone's happy ending."

As soon as it was out and the shrink smiled, she realized that Dr. Hopper had skillfully maneuvered her into a trap. "Damn it."

"You know what I think, Emma? I think that empty spot isn't just some magical contrivance. I think you went your whole life feeling unwanted, undeserving, and then someone came along who worshiped you _and_ your destiny, who could fill a void at just the time when everyone was depending on you as the Savior, and a part of you liked - _wanted_ \- to feel superior, to be the woman that Killian envisioned you as rather than the insecure - and very _human_ \- person you really are. It was easier to be his perfect version of you than to be the flawed person you have always been - that all of us are - and that _Neal_ reminded you that you had been. Someone who wasn't strong or righteous or she wouldn't have given up her son."

Emma lowered her gaze as she grumbled, "Plus the hurt thing."

"You know that Henry doesn't blame you, Emma. And that all of us make choices when we are in a dark place, alone, that we later regret."

"I've made some really bad choices, though. If I'd told Neal what I've done, Archie... he wouldn't have needed any further motivation to forget me. He'd be so much more disgusted," she said voice trembling. "You would be too."

In spite of her efforts to remain impassive, Emma started to tear up.

"I'm here to help you, Emma, not to judge you," Dr. Hopper reminded kindly.

She sniffed. "When we were in Neverland, I told Neal - I told him that I wished he'd died when he was shot, that my life would be easier. I had to tell him, it was my _secret_ so I could rescue him. But who _feels that_? Who wishes someone dead _because it's easy_? And I didn't even let him see Henry before he died. And I didn't try to save him when he _was_ dying _or_ when I was in the past. I told Rumplestiltskin, the past one, to take a forgetting potion so Neal could die a hero, not to take that from him out of the risk that things would end up worse, _but what could be worse than what happened?_ What's worse than Henry not having his father? His mother becoming the Dark One, I guess, but maybe that would have been avoided if I'd saved him. At least, Gold seems to think so."

Emma shook her head. "But the worst part is that, when Neal _did_ come back, I was so... so _horrible_ to him. And I let _Henry_ be horrible to him. But it wasn't because I wished he was still dead, it was because I knew he'd be ashamed if he knew I didn't even try, that I let him be dead, and it _wasn't_ for some... some heroic death bullshit, it was just because I kept losing him and I wanted it over with, I wanted to be with someone who thought I was perfect and have it be _easy_ and that could never be with him, because he knew me better than anyone, always saw through my bullshit, and I'm supposed to be the strong one, the perfect one, the one who saves everyone," she admitted ashamed, before reiterating meekly, "If anyone knew what I'd done, they'd never look at me again."

"I think they would."

"You don't know. Sure, they forgave me for killing a couple of psychopaths, but... the other stuff, stuff they don't know..."

"And you don't either... until you tell someone."

"I couldn't," Emma insisted, fighting back tears.

"And that was part of the appeal of your relationship with Killian?" Dr. Hopper prompted. "That he didn't want to know what you did, so long as you didn't ask what he had done?"

"Maybe. I don't know." Emma let out a breath and wiped at her eyes. "It was just... easy with him. Sex and death and pain and love, to him it was all the same. He didn't care that it wasn't healthy, that it wasn't how love is supposed to be. And I know how he treated me is messed up, and it's even more messed up that I excused it or convinced myself it was romantic. But the worst part is, he might have been the certified sociopath, but I'm the one who behaved like a monster even before I became the Dark One. I knew it was wrong, our attraction, I knew Killian was a bad person, that he was the opposite of _everything_ I stood for, that I claimed I believed in, and _still_ I let him just take me over and do things to me that..."

She took a breath. "Oh god, I'm so sorry... I don't know what's wrong with me... I wasn't even this weepy when I was really pregnant."

"There's nothing wrong with you," Dr. Hopper told her and smiled. "I'll make a deal with you. You tell me your deepest secret and I will tell you mine."

"Seriously?"

"Scouts honor."

"Pretty sure you weren't a boy scout."

Dr. Hopper smiled encouragingly. "Until you let it out, Emma, it will have control over you."

She frowned, ran her hands over her thighs, then finally admitted, "I'm afraid. I'm afraid I can't ever let go of this the darkness. The emptiness is gone, but it's... something else, the potential or whatever, and I don't know how to deal with it. I got... I got so _used to the emptiness_ and then to the _darkness_ that filled it. The _power_. I have so much power. I didn't ask for it, I don't deserve it... sometimes I think... I think the relationship I had with Killian was... like I wanted to be punished for filling that emptiness with all the bad stuff, letting the bad stuff take over, because being bad is easier. I wanted to hurt like I thought I deserved to."

"Do you still believe you deserve to hurt?"

"Sometimes," Emma admitted. "Because if I was really a hero, I wouldn't have killed people. And," she fidgeted with the swan keychain necklace she'd started wearing again after her fight with Henry, "if I was really a savior, the product of true love, I would have saved Neal. I would have let _love_ fill that emptiness. But I didn't. I was selfish. And when I didn't even try, I broke my promise to Henry that I wouldn't do to our kid what Neal did to me and his dad did to him - not put him first."

"I see."

"And the joke is, Neal _still_ loved me after Neverland. I told him I wished he'd stayed dead and he still loved me, he lost his life for me when he knew I probably didn't even want him anymore, and he told me to be happy with Henry, to find Tallahassee even if it was without him, but that's stupid, because any happiness I'd have without him couldn't be Tallahassee. That was _ours_. But I tried. I couldn't break my last promise to him, even though by trying to keep it I ended up breaking it and the other, and now everything is just a mess, and Killian is dead, and maybe he was a jerk, but in his own sick, psycho way, really did care for me too. He shouldn't have, though. He died because he wanted me and he thought I loved him, but the truth is, I didn't want to be loved by Killian either. Not really."

"Didn't you?"

"I just wanted to be touched," admitted Emma, eyes downcast in embarrassment. "To be reached. And I know I can't go back to the place I was in my life when I let that take me over. That... no defined line between us. Where he ended and I began... it was... blurry. Not sustainable, though. Not without brain damage, anyway. The thing is, I know I'll never have that kind of passion again. That all-consuming kind of bodice-ripper romance that was so... addictive and blinding."

Grimacing, Emma continued, "It was passion that came with a price. He changed a lot, a LOT a lot, even if it was just an act for me or some disease, while I let myself..." She shook her head. "No, I... I just can't feel as low as I did when I... chose to be with him, _why I chose to be with him_ and do what I have to do. I know that now. My head is finally clear. But now I have to fight to stay good, because the potential is there, potential I _can't_ fill with love, and the truth is, I don't have any more answers than I did when all of this first dropped into my lap. There's so many people to protect..."

"And you feel that you have to do that alone, when it's even harder than it was before."

"My family try. But they don't understand the burden, that I have to do it 'cause I was chosen, even if it was by that selfish spell, because I was bound to the Curse, to this town, to _magic_ , and now I still have to, but I'm... tainted. I'm not that perfect whatever they wanted me to be. I know they love me and just want the best for me, but they don't understand how hard it is. They don't understand how _imperfect_ I actually am, what getting that... other part of me back really means."

Emma paused and looked up at him, understanding a bit better. Maybe this therapy wasn't such a bad thing. But on the other hand...

"I think... this is complicated and my hour is almost up-"

"I don't have any patients until three. Keep going."

Emma wiped at her eyes and took a breath. She as was silent for several moments before speaking in a small voice, "I feel like I'm worse than anyone, honestly, I'm beneath them. My parents, my friends, my lovers, I feel like I'm not worthy of their love 'cause even though they love me it doesn't really mean anything because their opinions don't matter. They don't _know_. They haven't been through what I've been through and done what I've done, they didn't grow up thinking they were trash and feeling incomplete and not knowing why, and they don't know what it's like to fight this evil inside you that wants to destroy everything you ever loved... and they're not the Savior... I did and I do and I am. And sometimes I feel... this is what's so awful."

She frowned before concluding, "I _do_ feel like I'm better than them. Superior. And I... I like it. Which I know is wrong. Because I'm not. I don't deserve their praise or their forgiveness."

"So," Dr. Hopper surmised, "you went from having an inferiority complex to a superiority complex... but you've got an inferiority complex about your superiority complex."

"It doesn't make any sense."

"I think it makes every kind of sense. It just adds up to you feeling alone. And, Emma... everybody feels alone. And _everyone_ fights against the darker side of their nature. I can't imagine how hard it must be to emerge from the hell of being the Dark One only to have to reconcile a part of yourself suddenly restored, that's tempted by that darkness. To not let all of the hurt you poured into that empty space into your heart. But even if you do make mistakes, Emma, act selfishly and hurt others, that's only human, which is exactly what you are. And even if you can't fill that space with love, that doesn't mean you can't put _more love_ into your potential for goodness. _Real love_. Being afraid of failure, of rejection is normal, but it also feeds the darker part of our nature and makes it that much harder to accept love when it's given. But you don't have to deserve love to _be loved_."

After a pause, Dr. Hopper reminded, "I told you I would reveal my secret. Well, here it is. My parents were grifters of the worst kind who treated me terribly, so I went to Rumplestiltskin and got a potion that would, essentially, be their deaths, thought I decided that ignorance was bliss in exactly what the potion would do, as though it would absolve me from any actual blame. So, of course, they were wise to my plan and switched the bottle so that a young couple with a son drank it and died. For my penance, the Blue Fairy had me look after Geppetto, cursed with eternal insect life for as long as he lived.

"And bad as that was, what I had done, I regret just as much that I failed Geppetto. I failed to help him get over his trauma and make friends, find a wife, have his own children. Instead he made Pinocchio, and I failed to help him as well, said nothing when Geppetto made that deal to send him through the wardrobe with you. So, I failed you as well, Emma.

"Everyone regards me as the great conscience of the Enchanted Forest, but it's a lie, an act, and I am forever waiting for the people I regard as friends to see the truth, to see that all of my attempts to make up for that one horrible choice have merely compounded. And forever hoping that I can find a way to right my many wrongs."

Emma regarded Archie with a mix of surprise and skepticism before asking, "Do you think that you can?"

"I don't know. But you have to not be afraid of the unknown, Emma, that's where you start. You accept that a _complete_ Emma is never going to be perfect, that you'll make mistakes that will leave dark spots in your heart, but that doesn't mean you can't be a good person. It just makes you human. And _then_ you have a chance of finding happiness, whether it's with someone who will love you for who you are, warts and all, or just you learning to love yourself as you are. Which isn't the Savior or a princess or sheriff or even a lost girl - it's _just Emma_ ," Dr. Hopper advised.

"I think," he said, closing his notepad, "maybe you need to spend some time figuring out who you are and part of that is looking at that potential for darkness, looking at the, anger, rage and pain that you pushed down and avoided so that you can come to terms with it, and perhaps even find ways that it can strengthen your love."

* * *

AN: Ugh. This was a long and tedious chapter. Every time I tried to edit it down, it just gave me fits. This is what happens when _Once Upon A Time_ utterly fails to have Emma address any of the crap in her life unless it's to nod at Hook and take a swig from a flask or get stabby with a mystical weapon. On the footnote front, some dialogue is borrowed from _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ episodes "Selfless", "Conversations with Dead People" and "Never Leave Me" and altered with love to Joss Whedon who should replace The Brothers Dim and send Jane Espenson to the corner for a time-out. Other snippets of dialogue were inspired by twuwuvdearie's tumblr post "Let's Image an Unforgiven Emma" post/118797225978/lets-imagine-an-unforgiven-emma. Emma's line about her most passionate relationship is taken from one of the few episodes of _Backstrom_ that I watched, and her monologue about the empty space is from an interview Jennifer Morrison gave movies-tv/tribeca-interviews-jennifer-morrison-talks-warning-labels-ouat-and-happy-beginnings/#.VWN3XkZa_18, one of the few regarding Emma's darkness that doesn't sound completely like she was pulling it out of her ass.

Next up: We time jump a few months, Season 1 style, and learn a little more about what's been eating Henry Mills... or maybe just about his taste in mood music.


	19. Love According To

**CHAPTER NINETEEN: LOVE ACCORDING TO FRENCH CANADIAN SPACE MERMAIDS**

(In which there's a time jump, Henry defies authority, and Mary Margaret plays matchmaker - so you know that's going to snowball into a fiasco.)

Valentine's Day brought a dance at Storybrooke High, in attendance of which Henry found himself wearing an ugly blue tuxedo-ish costume thing that his grandmother had picked out. He didn't have a date, of course, since part of his grounding following the "Grace-slash-Gretel Incident" forbid him from dating... as well as any sort of driving. He'd had to ride between his grandparents in David's truck, which was rather humiliating - though Henry suspected his grandfather would have let him drive if Regina hadn't seen them off with a stern look... and from the tittering comments that Mary Margaret made on the way, he sorely suspected she believed dancing with girls and potentially finding his true love to a Journey song would somehow bypass and invalidate the terms of his grounding.

Henry loved his grandparents, but they had a way of completely disrespecting both of his moms under some delusion that their parenting and leadership skills were superior to everyone else and that being soulmates who had saved each other with true love multiple times meant they could take executive action in anything regarding matchmaking. It was kind a massive pain in the butt!

And it was _totally embarrassing_ having to accompany his grandparents into the gymnasium which was decorated in what Henry supposed his grandmother considered the closest thing short of a wedding reception to a royal ball that could be put together with a handful of fairy-nuns ... and probably, in part, was because crazy circumstances had intervened to interrupt Emma's wedding reception ball before the guests had even finished gathering in the town meeting hall... which was literally razed to the ground... but later repaired with magic, minus the giant cake Granny had made and the stacks of wrapped gift boxes and bouquets of roses that Mr. French had grumbled about for weeks, though to be fair, Emma had really wanted yellow tulips and was shot down by the woman who was now taking over the karaoke machine system by the portable assembly stage where a big bowl of construction paper hearts was perched on a pedestal for a Valentine's Day version of Secret Santa.

 _Ugh_.

And he just _knew_ they'd probably try to be hip and mashup pop tunes, which would just make it worse. He still had nightmares of the video from Emma's bachelorette party... which he found Hook watching for the knock-down-drag-out-hair-pulling-clothes-ripping fight between his moms after Emma _finally_ figured out that Regina had killed Graham.

His birth mom could be so _unbelievably_ dim sometimes. And she didn't have syphilis and monkey herpes to blame for _that_ one!

She wasn't exactly being brilliant where it came to Henry's misbehavior of late, either, but he'd long ago figured out that Emma's superpower only worked with complete strangers in situations with zero emotional investment, which _never_ happened in this town, so it was useless and her clinging to it was about as useful as Jack clinging to that wardrobe in the middle of the ice cold Atlantic... and if this dance was going to have the entire soundtrack to _Titanic_ , he might drown himself in the punch bowl!

Which was located in a dark corner by the bleachers, and that's where Henry sequestered himself, as far from his grandparents and the other bowl of construction paper hearts as humanly possible. Forced social interaction did not true-love-finding-make... at least not in New York where kids acted normal instead of this weird mix of boring Curse personalities and Enchanted Forest etiquette-obsessed upbringings... well, aside from Gretel, anyway, who got labeled the school rebel and slut for defying the status quo.

It had been Gretel's idea to take those pictures of Grace, which to be fair, was for the shitty reason to embarrass the younger girl, because Grace was the most well-endowed girl in his class and seniors had to treat freshman like crap. Probably, Gretel was just jealous that all the guys drooled over Grace while she herself was tall and athletic - not the fairy tale ideal. In that, Henry felt bad for Gretel, that the boys were already indoctrinated into what the feminine ideal was, and she didn't fit it, so she had to be slutty to get guys to notice her. But on the other hand, she'd always had a mean personality, ever since she set him up for shoplifting, so he should have known better than to buy stolen vodka from her... which then lead to a weird, brief, and rather uncomfortable secret boyfriend/girlfriend situation.

He _should_ have known better, that she was the type of person to use what dirt she had on him to get him to be her accomplice in various rebellious activities, and while Henry didn't entirely disagree with some of her objections to the conservative social conformity of the Enchanted Forest way of life that had taken root here after the Second Curse, he wouldn't have used her methods... if he hadn't been on the desperate side of fitting in without being asked why he wasn't doing so in the stereotypical 1950's fashion that seemed to be the middle ground these fairy tale characters had settled on for the degree of acclimating to comparatively socially ultramodern the Land Without Magic they could tolerate.

In short, the best defense was an offense in which you acted like a womanizing dick.

 _"It's a woman's duty to make a man feel strong and in charge."_ Killian's advice summed up what the men in his family thought, so being a misogynist prick just went hand-in-hand with that worldview, and people just accepted it. As long as you were, in some twisted capacity, perving on girls like you couldn't wait to get some princess ass, then everyone saw it as being a healthy and virile young man always on the lookout for some poor damsel to rescue (who would bestow her kindness with some sexual favor that would never, of course, be spoken of until after one's wedding day) as one would certainly turn out to be true love, and one didn't let any moss grow on that stone once puberty started, because the sooner you found that special someone, the sooner you could get hitched and start popping out kids.

It seemed to Henry that a person should have to find a way to feel strong and in charge all on their own, not expect someone to basically sacrifice _their_ strength and independence so their partner could feel better about themselves. But that's how people rolled in The Enchanted Forest.

So, school dances were really just the crape paper and pop music equivalent of débutante balls to ensure everyone got paired up. And the majority of the kids seemed perfectly cool with that. But Henry wasn't in the majority, he was in the punch bowl crowd and joined the freaks and geeks at the sidelines. Gretel, of course, was the defecto head of the weird loners, black-painted lips spread as she picked her teeth with a toothpick from one of the finger sandwiches. She'd no doubt gotten a glare and a dress code violation talk from Mary Margaret but had failed to make her way to the girl's bathroom to remove her Goth make-up and fishnets.

"Look'n sharp, Swills," she catcalled and Henry just grimaced and grabbed a cup before finding a spot along the wall, that just happened to be occupied by a pale looking Baelfire.

Henry took a breath before joining him. It was still weird that the boy was his father, but it helped that he was a nice kid and cool in a nerdy sort of way that was, well, not unlike Henry himself. Of course, being the youngest in their year and late in joining, he was immediately in the outcast group. Well, that and everyone knew he was Henry's father but were forbidden to talk about it - just as everyone had been given a talk about Pinnocchio when August got de-aged without any memories of the sex-addict writer he was before who'd spoken at an assembly about writing and had to be hustled off of the stage when he got a little too descriptive of his inspiration in Bangkok; being only ten at the time, he'd thought August was talking about a table tennis match, but now - gross. Impressive. But still gross.

"So... is this your first dance?" Henry asked after taking a sip of his punch.

Bae answered with a grimace, "With girls. Pan held a dance of sort in Hamlin. He got us all high on pixie dust and tried to kidnap me. Other than that... I snuck into a few fancy dinner dances in London, when I was desperate, to pick the coat check room, but the only formal dancing I've done was a few lessons with Wendy for a party I never made it to." After a pause, he asked, "You?"

"I wish. My mom made me go to cotillion starting when I was eight. It was always square-dancing, though. I think it was supposed to be punishment."

"Square dancing?"

"Trust me. It's just awful. That's when I knew I had to start trying to find my birth mom. No sane parent would make their kid square-dance."

The screeching of the microphone suddenly made everyone yelp and cover their ears. Accept for Snow White who was holding it and exclaimed, "EVERYONE! IT'S TIME FOR THE FIRST DANCE! GIRLS PICK FIRST!"

Henry sighed and almost wished a portal would open up and suck him to another world as he, along with the other boys, carried his cup of punch to stand on the half court line while the girls cued up at the giant punch bowl by the stage where Mary Margaret was beaming excitedly. Henry ended up next to Gretel's brother Hansel, the shorter, older boy looking less than thrilled himself with the proceedings. Henry had sort of become friendly with Hansel even though him and Gretel's didn't much hang out her anymore. He wouldn't say that they were _friends_ , but Hansel helped his father out with auto-shop and driver's ed during his free periods and so probably on account of being Gretel's brother didn't _completely_ ostracize Henry for being kinda friends with her instead of just using her for sex like the older boys in their class.

"BAELFIRE!" Snow called out, smiling happily as she preened over a girl named Mary who'd seemed to have a bit of a ctush on Baelfire in spite of his family situation... perhaps because she was kind of ditz.

"Good luck with that one," said Hansel and Bae squared his shoulders and walked to his potential social doom.

"JACK HORNER!"

As Jack skulked out of the corner to join Betsy Botter, daughter of the town's bakers, Hansel remarked, "Should be another bowl full of condoms."

"Yeah," Henry agreed with a snort. "I can't really see how anything good can come of encouraging teenagers to get _seriously_ romantic. Sometimes I think just because my grandparents found true love, they think every 'meet cute' is automatically fated to be forever. Of course, I guess that means by their definition a meet cute is pulling a lying murderer out of a pile of corpses or getting attacked by flying monkeys with the guy whose wife you murdered. Sometimes I think sharing a heart halved their I.Q.'s. But then, near as I can tell, you don't really need a lot of smarts to make a living in the disease infested feudal wasteland that's the Enchanted Forest. No offense."

Hansel grinned and responded with a shrug, "None taken. My father wanted to be an architect, but being a peasant and all, and after our mom died, there was no chance of him impressing some lord to even have a chance at an apprenticeship. You pretty much do what you were born into unless some person with magic uses you as a pawn in their own game and it just happens to make your situation better. Like your grandfather. Of course, then you get into the matter of denying that magical person to assert your free will, and you get screwed in other ways. Plus, I mean, even though he had the kingdom, the queen, and the title, he _still_ had to hide his true identity, because then he'd been a fraud with no right to King George's kingdom. Really, he's just a consort, but you're grandmother's followers vouch for him, because they want that land should we return. Which, I imagine, is part of the reason behind King George riling up the forest dwellers and farm fanatics. At this point, the only real reason to support your grandparent is that they have powerful magic users on their side, i.e. potential dangerous enemies, as well as Prince Eric's navy and Midas' financial backing. But if they could form an alliance between all of the less powerful sorcerers, get militia support from the disenchanted mercenaries who've been sidelined by the Merry Men and make the pirates legitimate privateers, and get control of the fairy dust diamond mines, then it would be fairly easy to conquer your grandparents' kingdoms. They may act justly compared to many, but strategically, they only won that war because of your other grandfather."

"Yeah, they do kind of completely such at both strategy and tactics," Henry agreed, rolling his eyes, while wondering who Hansel was talking to, because that was _not_ the version of history his grandmother taught. The losers, probably, which he supposed meant the peasants who suffered for harboring Snow White in defiance of the Evil Queen and then kept on suffering because their beloved monarch let their oppressor/tormentor go back to her fortress with all of her evil supplies and followers on a jinx that basically meant she could murder as many people as she wanted and burn the seven kingdoms from the mountains to the sea - _she just couldn't harm Snow and Charming in the process_.

This being a prince thing, as far as Henry was concerned, had lost _a lot_ of its appeal. Plus, there was the only _bastard_ issue that his grandparents didn't know that he knew about or that they'd issued some degree at a town hall meeting that said he was legitimate on their say-so, as if that would mean anything to the growing numbers of disenchanted Enchanted Foresters who didn't think David was a legitimate ruler and ever since Mary Margaret fucked up at being mayor, questioned her ability to lead a kingdom. Plus, it's not like _anyone_ was looking to marry a guy with two mothers, one who'd been the Evil Queen and one who'd been the Dark One, and whose father had been the son of the Dark One... and whose family basically brought some magical catastrophe upon everyone else on a regular basis and never held themselves accountable for it.

Really, at this point, his family was basically third in line behind The Lannisters and The Habsburgs in terms of being a fucking mess of murder, incest, and stupidity.

Sometimes Henry really wished he could go back to being that naive ten year old who believed all of the heroics and selfless do-gooding in his book. 'Cause it pretty much sucked being a cynical teenager who'd had to realize the hard way that it was all a bunch of "written by the victors" bullshit.

"HENRY MILLS!" his grandmother's voice pulled Henry from his thoughts, and Henry silently swore as he realized Grace had pulled his name, which could only mean Mary Margaret had some fairy bewitch the damned thing in her weird obsession to pair him up, because, it seemed, since things imploded and collided fatally between his mom and stepfather, she needed a new matchmaking project to maintain her delusion that she was a good judgment of character with regard to romance.

Hansel caught him as he was about to head up, whispering, "Me and Gretel are gonna sneak out. Meet us at the car in the lot after the first dance if you're in."

Unable to answer with the spotlight on him, Henry strode forward to meet Grace with an exchanged awkward smile. She'd never been informed of his peeping and things were probably better that way. Henry liked Grace. They even had a few dates when he was thirteen... until his life got weird and she said she thought it best that they didn't see each other anymore, and he was honestly okay with that. She was a nice girl. A bit on the flighty side, maybe having inherited some... eccentric mentality from her father, and her dad frankly scared him, but she was still a good person who hadn't deserved to be shamed.

"So... this is obviously a setup," she said and Henry sighed.

"Yeah, sorry. My grandma... I think since my step-dad died and my mom made it clear she was not going to be set up on any blind dates, I'm her project. The Enchanted Forest motto seems to be that 'single people are unhappy people doomed to die alone and you have to get over heartbreak by getting under someone of the opposite sex as soon as possible'," Henry explained with a grimace. "So, she thinks I was actually into Gretel, which means I need a distraction from that trainwreck situation by getting involved with a pretty girl so I don't have to actually bother with any kind of self-reflection about why I got involved with her to begin with, because love is about pretty people and dancing and adventures, not talking, and getting to know each other, and compatibility."

"Wow, that's super romantic," snorted Grace.

"Yeah, I left out that they should preferably be some family relation or, you know, look like them," Henry stated.

"Look like them?"

"You look like my mom when she was fifteen. Which would be less weird if my grandmother hadn't actually seen video or had a vision of what my mom looked like," he groaned. "I mean, I liked Harry Potter and all, but what was up with him marrying a girl who was like his mom's doppelgänger? Women have really weird concepts of true romance, I think."

"And not men? Wasn't your step-dad also your step grandad?"

"Pretty sure that was less about romance and more about my step-dad being a sex offender sociopath with cottage cheese for a brain.," Henry pointed out. "My grandma's thinking more along the lines of this ending with 'I'm sorry that I got way too into playing house and accidentally kissed you passionately' followed immediately by a marriage proposal."

"Well, I can pretend to be playing house with you," shrugged Grace, "if it'll get your granny off your back."

"You don't mind?" Henry asked, surprised, as _My Heart Will Go On_ began.

"Oh, I do like you, Henry," she told him, "and I would totally sleep with you if you wanted, because I think you're a nice guy even if you've been acting like a jerk, but I can't see us getting married and having babies. More of a... friends with benefits type situation."

"Er... um..."

"No pressure," she told him.

"Um... that's... flattering," Henry finally managed, "but... I think... I'd rather just be friends without the benefits. I... ah... got in enough trouble with Gretel, and-"

"It's cool!" she laughed and pecked him on the cheek, which Henry noted got a swooning look from his grandmother to his grandfather where the two were now setting up a keyboard. So, it was definitely about to be a go on some stupid duet thing.

"You know, ah," Henry cleared his throat, "I was thinking of skipping out with Hansel and Gretel. Hansel finished rebuilding his car and they want to take it for a spin, if you want-"

"To make it look like we're sneaking out to _snog_?" Grace giggled. "Sounds way more fun than this! I saw the playlist and I _hate_ Celin Dion!"

Henry sighed in relief and as soon as the music ended, he let Grace pull him by the hand toward the door that led out to the athletic field. From there it was a short walk to the parking lot and the blue and white-racing-striped 1969 Dodge Charger, the back of which was occupied.

When Henry knocked on the window, Gretel turned and popped the door open, revealing a somewhat disheveled and panicked looking Baelfire.

"I poached us a locksmith from Lambchop. Told him he didn't need to pick the lock on my chastity belt, but apparently Baelfire is a good boy," she pouted.

"You gave Henry syphilis," Bae reminded sourly. "I'm not sure there's enough of those condom things in this world that would get me to have intercourse with you."

"Yeah, yeah, blame it on Georgie Porgie for sticking something more than his finger in my pie!" Gretel scoffed and raised a brow at Grace as she got out. "What's with her? Hansel didn't say this was a 'plus one' situation, did he?"

"I'm his cover story," Grace said with a shrug. "His grandparents think I'm his best match and we snuck out to having sex and make more illegitimate royal babies."

Gretel snorted. "Your grandparents are really awful at grand-parenting."

"Tell me about it."

Hansel came jogging toward them, then. "Sorry. Couldn't get away from Muffy. Felt like I was picked for tribute. I'd rather fight to the death than dance with some of those bougie snobs."

"But dancing leads to at least some of them putting out," pointed out Gretel who pointed to Grace. "She's Henry's cover-slash-underaged-true-love-match-booty-call."

"Just as long as she won't tattle."

"Tattle about what?"

"We're sneaking into the mines," Baelfire explained.

"Wait, _what_?" Henry exclaimed.

Hansel explained, "The Dwarfs found a new crop of diamonds, which I'm guessing, way things go, will probably be destroyed by some new big bad shortly. We're gonna nick some of them as insurance. You've been down there, right?"

"Yeah, not recently, but sure," Henry told him, nodding. He hadn't heard about the new crystals, but then he'd mostly been under house and library arrest. He frowned a little. " _That's_ why you invited me? Because I know my way around the mine?"

"And we invited Baelfire," said Gretel, "because he's good at picking locks and unlikely to be missed, since most people either don't know him being the new kid or avoid him like the plague on account of his father and, you know, _the dead thing_. Don't take it personally. Think of it like... _Ocean's Eleven_. You both got necessary skills. Which, I guess, makes Gracie the useless love interest that distracts from the heist plot-"

"Hey!" Grace hissed. "I am not useless. And I'm a _fake_ love interest."

"Can we just go already?" Hansel huffed. "We do have to be back by midnight for the last dance or we will get in trouble. So, either you guys are in and we go, or you stay here. But we can't waist any more time joking around."

No one bowed out, none of them really wanting to go back into the gymnasium as another song from the _Titanic_ soundtrack began blaring into the chilly night. As they piled in and drove off, Gretel behind the wheel and speeding like a _Fast and Furious_ movie, Baelfire wondered aloud at how anyone found a love story that ended with hundreds of people dying, one of the couple drowning, and the survivor settling for a second rate marriage as the epitome of romantic cinema.

"How should I know?" Getel replied. "Our dad loves _The English Patient_ and that's a boring-ass story about some guy who crashes his plane, is horribly injured and burned, gets cared for by some nurse who falls in love with him - only for the guy to croak at the end in a cave in a fucking desert. Adults are weird," she swerved off the highway and slammed on the breaks. "Ready for some spelunking?"

* * *

AN: The title is from a John Oliver joke that lead to a satirical pre-filmed CNN piece intended for what news worthy event? (the end of the world.) "Lambchop" is Gretel's nickname for Mary from "Mary Had A Little Lamb" whom I imagine as being a relation of Bo Peep and "Muffy" is "Miss Muffet", who's got quite the tuffet and severe arachnophobia.

Next up: August pays Emma a "friendly" visit.


	20. Brotherly Love

**CHAPTER TWENTY: BROTHERLY LOVE**

(In which August regains his in-character doucheyness, because The Author never liked him, and Emma gets nostalgic with pencils.)

Feet up on her desk, Emma threw a pencil at the ceiling and muttered a triumphant "Boo-yah!" as it hit one of the holes in the fiberboard paneling and stuck.

Not using magic was hard, but she was trying to be more sparring with it, aware that she'd been taking it for granted and distracted by it. Plus, the power thing. It was Archie's idea. Of course, just because she wasn't using magic to improve her accuracy didn't mean she was ready to go back to doing _paperwork_ the old-fashioned way. Baby steps. Besides which, she could just foist the stacks of papers on her father, and even though he was _terrible_ at administrative stuff, it would keep him off the streets, and if Regina ended up yelling at him for improper filing, well, that was his business spending his free-time joyriding in the squad car instead of reading the department handbook.

She threw another pencil.

"Hard at work, Sheriff?"

Startled, Emma turned and in doing so tipped her precariously reclined chair past the point of no return. Legs flailing, her stack of paperwork was sent flying along with a dozen newly sharpened #2 pencils _and_ her "World's Best Mom!" coffee mug that Henry got for her back in New York before he remembered that he had _another_ mom. Magic was an instinct at this point and Emma reached for it, freezing the mug and its slosh of cold coffee just before it could crash into the file cabinet even as she herself landed on the floor in a heap, the thud causing the other dozen pencils she'd successful imbedded in the ceiling to rain down like tiny wood and graphite spears.

Resigned to violating her "magic free day" rules, Emma froze the pencils, summoned her mug (with coffee) into her hand and then stepped out of the way to let the pencils fall harmlessly to the floor. That done, she leveled a glare on the man standing in the doorway looking bemused - and she _really_ hated that look from the first moment he stepped up to her on Main Street and asked about a place to stay.

"Thanks _so much_ for knocking, August. You could have put my eye out."

"You shouldn't throw them then," he quipped, grinning, and pulled out from behind his back a long-stemmed rose.

Emma groaned and set her mug down on the desk with a heavy _thunk_. "That's sweet, but you don't need to make me feel better just because I'm single on Valentine's Day. And don't even try to use it as an apology for nearly breaking my favorite coffee mug and the bruise I'm gonna have on my butt now," she stated with a harumph before bending down - with a wince - to pick up the pencils and papers.

"You could magic that stuff up," August told her, "and who said it was a pity flower, Emma?"

"I _could_ , but that would defeat the purpose," Emma shot back, "of weaning myself off of dependence on magic so I don't end up as addicted as Regina and Gold, because I've been letting a lot of stuff in my life go to shit while using quick magic fixes. And if it's _not_ a pity flower, then you can march your formerly wooden ass back out those doors!"

"Oh, come on," the former puppet whined. "You _know_ we've got chemistry, Emma. And now that we're both single..."

"I told you, you're like a brother to me, August."

"Like Angelina Jolie and her brother in the nineteen-nineties," August argued.

"Oh, for the love of..." She glared and stood up. "I _should_ have known. The brotherly affection thing was all a long con. You are such an ass!"

"Please," August argued, "there is no _way_ you meant that 'we were only ever friends' either! I was your safety net if Killy Stu got killed, and considering people drop like flies in this town-"

" _Killy Stu_?"

"Well, from a literary perspective, the guy was a total Gary Stu. He had no purpose other than to be your vibrator with a pulse. There are zero events or relationships here that couldn't have happened if he dropped dead of heart failure after running off with Rumplestiltskin's wife. Pan would have captured Sinbad to do his bidding. Regina would've hired another assassin to kill her mother who'd have become Cora's minion, and Gold didn't need anyone to help him with that hat, he just got his jollies making Hook miserable. And from what I understand, other than sailing a ship through a portal - which most anyone could do given the thing's enchanted - the only thing Killian did in Neverland was hold out on everyone about the healing water until it got a kiss from you, and Tinkerbell or Baelfire could have told you about the water, and it was Baelfire, anyway, who got his old man to agree to actually make the stuff useful so your mother wouldn't have to go through with her plan to abandon you again and play _Robinson Crusoe_ with Prince Charming."

"Wow, you're just full of literary metaphors tonight," Emma snorted. "Fine, I married an expendable guy with a pretty face, violent tendencies, and impulse control issues. You're right. So, you think I'm going to pay that bad judgment forward by dating a guy carved from a tree who _destroyed my first relationship_? Honestly, August, I was in a weird place when you got... re-aged, and maybe without any real friends here that stuck around for more than a few weeks, I was willing to let a lot of bygones be bygones that I actually should have stayed a bit bitter about, because you _did_ ruin my life. _You sent me to prison_. _You took my money_. And you have _never_ apologized for that. Sending me a car key and then eighteen years later dropping 'Phuket' in a sentence when I'm shouting at you that you're fucking insane _does not_ qualify. So _no_ I will _not_ go out with you, _you entitled, manipulated, jerk!_ "

August stood there looking shocked, having been utterly certain that he would be successful in his endeavor, while Emma just rolled her eyes and scoffed, "News flash. I'm no longer brain damaged _and_ I'm going to therapy. Next session, I'll be sure to tell Archie that you still haven't outgrown being a douche-"

Suddenly the ground lurched, toppling the coffee mug to the floor where it shattered.

The former marionette grinned and quipped, "Ah, the price of ma-"

" _SHUT UP!"_

* * *

AN: Emma may have told Hook that she only ever saw August as a friend, but we all know she was laying that bullshit on thick. And considering August hasn't said a thing about Neal on the show since before his own death? Yeah, no. _When Harry Met Sally_ is so right: (heterosexual) men and women cannot be friends without one of them eventually wanting to sleep with the other. Also, if you like August, a warning that he's going to get even more pervy before is "arch" is done.

Next up: Two boys with an inexplicable hereditary attraction to calamity walk into a mine...


	21. Fire In the Hole

**CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: FIRE IN THE HOLE**

(In which Henry and Baelfire share a sobering fucked-up-family moment.)

Once his ears stopped ringing and some of the dust cleared, Henry remembered Gretel pulling down Dopey's axe... and then the ground heaving and the ceiling falling in - just like the last time he got stuck down here.

"Henry, are you okay?"

He gingerly sat up and found Baelfire's face dancing in the beam of his helmet's lamp. The generator's lights had gone out.

"I think so. You?"

"Yeah."

"GUYS!?" a voice called from the other side of some rubble. It was Hansel.

"WE'RE OKAY!" Henry called back as he stood up. "BUT WE CAN'T GET THROUGH!"

"STAY THERE! WE'LL GET HELP!"

The muffled sound of feet crunching rocks followed, fading into the dark distance.

"Well, this sucks," sighed Henry. "Second time I've been trapped down here!"

"Really?" Bae asked, surprised.

Henry nodded. "I was ten. I was trying to prove that the Curse existed to my mom - Em-"

The ground trembled again and the two boys stumbled away from the caved-in section as another beam tumbled down right where Henry had been laying a minute ago.

"We can't stay here," Bae deduced. "This section is unstable."

As they continued backing away, Henry remarked, "We might be able to get to the Library. There's an elevator there."

"Why would the library have an elevator to the mine tunnels?"

"Well, my mom - Regina, kept a sorceress in dragon form down there. Maybe she lowered down goats for Maleficent to eat or something? I'm not really sure."

Henry never did ask her what the point of a two-person-operated-lift was when a dragon couldn't fit in it and she was the only one other than Jefferson who had their memories. It just seemed like a convenient plot device. Thankfully, someone had it upgraded between then and when his mom and Hook went looking for the Ring Pop of Doom so it could be controlled from the car.

"Your family is certainly odd, Henry."

Giving Baelfire a rueful look, Henry declared, "My family is 'odd'? Your father was the Dark One _and_ your grandfather was Peter Pan."

Bae shrugged. "Yes, but I wasn't adopted by the woman who tried to kill my mother as a baby - who then married a man whose wife she killed that actually turned out to be her half sister in disguise who re-killed her and was saved by your birth mother after she imprisoned your father in the Dark One's vault for the purpose of rewriting history to be raised by your psychotic grandmother-slash-step-great-great grandmother so that neither of your mothers would exist after which she was killed by your birth mother who became the Dark One and is now back from the dead and expecting the child of your adoptive mother's husband whom she raped."

"Yeah," Henry conceded, "but Cora slept with your dad."

Bae startled at that news then shook his head. "Touché."

* * *

AN: Another chapter title quiz! What's it from, people? Hint: "We mined coal together."

Next up: Why exactly are the Dwarfs Snow White's guards when they always seem so fucking useless?


	22. Heigh Ho Humbug

**CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: HEIGH HO HUMBUG**

(In which Emma gets bad news and the Dwarfs should really be investigated by The Mine Safety and Health Administration.)

The patrol car barreled down the dirt road, sirens blaring. It was against her better judgment that Emma had allowed August to ride shotgun, but all hands were on deck (she regrettably still found herself occasionally using Killian's mariner-isms). When she leapt from the car, it was to a cluster of Dwarfs. Leroy had called her within minutes of the earthquake that there was what appeared to be a sizable collapse at the mine, having rushed there immediately with Sleepy and Sneezey, having earlier that day dynamited into a new section... and, of course, without getting around to properly shoring it up before the Dwarfs skivved off early to celebrate at Granny's.

Emma noted that they were looking a bit inebriated, but she figured there was no point in giving them sobriety checks and ticketing whichever one had driven their repaired creepy rape van here. Resisting the urge to call them Drunky, Sleazy, and Stupid, she addressed Leroy, "Okay, what's the deal, guys?"

The trio exchanged a look, then Leroy nodded to the trailer where they kept their gear. "Better come see for yourself."

Bewildered and annoyed, Emma followed into the trailer... where three filthy teenagers were getting cuts cleaned and bandaged by Doc.

"They snuck into the mine," said Leroy. "With Henry and... er... Baelfire."

Emma's heart seized. "Where are they?"

"Trapped behind the cave-in," Ava/Gretel answered, adding contritely, "I'm really sorry, Ma'am. It's just... we heard about the diamonds and we figured... we'd take a few. No offense, but... well... whenever the next psycho magic user attacks the town, based on experience, everyone outside of your family has to fend for themselves, and most of us don't have magic. Hansel and I thought it'd be protection in the case of a magical emergency, and Henry and Baelfire agreed to help."

Emma sagged, torn between fury and guilt, because the girl wasn't wrong about her family ignoring everyone else when the shit hit the fan. Somewhere along the way, she'd fallen into that mindset, given up being everyone's Savior and just saving her family, generally from the fiascoes they were responsible for. It was all pretty fucked up. So, of course, Henry would choose _now_ to get off that family bandwagon himself after the last few years of severely narrow-minded focus following their return from New York. She really hated that she'd let her parents screw her up and then passed that on to her kid, and neither of them had even had the benefit of being raised within that family to blame for being screwed up by their parents... well, aside from Regina, who was probably _the_ most self-centered person in any universe and left Emma to seriously rethink having let her back into Henry's life and working her own ass off to help that lunatic get a happy ending after zero remorse for all of the crimes she'd committed.

Sometimes it felt these past few weeks like she'd awoken from a haze, had been under a curse like everyone here had for 28 years. The therapy sessions led to some seriously uncomfortable self-reflection on how much she could blame on syphilis and monkey herpes and how much was just the accumulated baggage of her upbringing and being in all kinds of denial over how that had and was still fucking her up and causing bad judgment.

She would have to have a long talk with Henry about _bad judgment_ as soon as she hauled his ass out of the mine _for the second time_.

"All right, so where exactly are they trapped?" Emma asked, reigning in her anger and panic.

"Who's trapped?" Regina interjected, barreling into the trailer.

* * *

AN: I wonder when the various character decided "this is the name I'm going with". I get that Snow White considered "Mary Margaret" as an alias, so she wouldn't be adverse to using it, but why would people want to go by a cursed name given to them for their miserable imprisonment? And who is in charge of the mines, anyway? It always seems to be David mucking around with the Dwarfs, but shouldn't The Blue Fairy be in charge? Or maybe she's just hoping a cave-in will kill them all?

Next up: Mixing recycled plots.


	23. Free Falln'

**CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: FREE FALLIN'**

(In which Henry and Baelfire attract mortal peril.)

"That's definitely the same beam," Bae remarked with a frown, pointing to the vertical support that had a cluster of badly bent nails that vaguely resembled a squashed spider.

"It's got to be a spell."

"Yeah," sighed Henry, frustrated. After several twists and turns that didn't match up with the map, it seemed clear there was some kind of enchantment on the mine, something like labyrinths, or at least what he remembered Belle expounding once during one of her random detours about something magical she'd read during her years at the Dark Castle. It made sense after the number of break-ins down here over the years, he supposed, for someone to finally put a spell on the place... particularly if there was a crop of readily available magical crystals ripe for the picking and knowing what could be done with a stolen fairy wand. Though given how often break-ins _had_ happened, it hadn't occurred to any of them that anything had changed. Storybrooke, after all, had pretty much been operating on a _good faith_ _everyone keeps their doors unlocked_ small town philosophy since forever... which was actually pretty stupid once the Curse broke and they were attacked by villain after villain and monster after monster.

"I'm sorry you got dragged into this, Baelfire," Henry told the other boy as they continued to trudge along. Much as he'd initially been excited at the idea of having an adventure with his dad - even if Bae didn't know that part - he'd gladly go back to fake make-out dancing with Grace.

"I didn't get dragged into it, Henry. When Gretel said she needed a Cracksman, I thought this sounded like an adventure. I wanted to come," Bae argued with a shrug. "My papa is pretty overprotective. I got to be quite independent living on the streets for six months, which I think he would rather pretend didn't happen, and he's worried something will, I guess given this town's history and, well, my own," he amended with a wince. "I know he wants to protect me and look after me, but it's gotten stifling. I was just glad that Belle talked him into letting me go to the dance, even if I'd have to put up with your grandmother's matchmaking. No offense."

Henry snorted. "None taken. My whole family's been grudgingly 'putting up with it' for years. You should have seen how she squealed and gushed _and showed up to be there and watch_ when I went out on my first date with Grace, that Gramps basically pressured me into, probably because she nagged him incessantly about it and he just wanted her to _shut up already_. Sometimes I just want to tell her that she's wasting her time trying to _pick_ who I love with her magical scheming and it's just _humiliating_."

"So, why don't you?"

Sighing, Henry answered, "I don't want to hurt her feelings. Her and my grandpa have a particular view of the world and relationships that even though they were caught up in the whole 'arranged marriage' thing and think they're so great for being the exception to that Enchanted Forest rule, they seem to want everyone else to play by some... weird speed dating true love finding philosophy that's just as screwed up. I mean, considering how my grandmother shoved my moms at men... I don't know, I think it's a lose-lose proposition. Either way, I'm going to disappoint them both somehow by not living up to their expectations. I'm already a bastard who was born in this world and _I like math_ , which is probably something that'd get you beheaded in the Enchanted Forest if you weren't using it to build a castle or a ship or balancing some ruler's accounts. So, having passed on the magical Author thing, that's my future if they find a way to return to the Enchanted Forest and bring me with them - the Bastard Bookkeeper."

"Well, at least you have more education than I do," Baelfire reasoned. "And you went to school outside of Storybrooke for awhile. Even if you can't apply a lot of it to life in the Enchanted Forest, just having that knowledge is worthwhile."

Henry smiled at that. Often times Baelfire was a mystery, but now and then pieces that had survived as Neal came through. His love of learning was one of those things, one that he'd passed on to Henry... and seemed pretty rare for fairy tale characters. "Now you sound like Belle," he chuffed, adding, "No offense. Seriously, I wish more people here had that curiosity and thirst for knowledge. It's like the Middle Ages around here with how little people give a shit."

"It does seem that way. I don't know why people don't jump at the opportunity to learn what this world has to offer or find a way that everyone could explore it instead of clinging to the idea of going back to such a primitive world," said Bae. "Yes, it was home, but this is a world with so much more opportunity that more than makes up for the lack of magic. People have been to the _moon_ and are planning to visit other _planets_. They have devices that can see to the very beginning of the universe and an understanding of it that is so much more amazing than the astrological 'shit' I was taught."

"And my grandmother _still_ teaches in school," groaned Henry, which got an eye-roll from Baelfire. "Everyone should be trying to acclimate to this world instead of holding out this false hope that the Dark Curse can be broken in some way to send us all back and repair all the damage caused from the multiple castings when it's lost so much magic that we're probably lucky we can even keep up a protection barrier and use magic at all, let alone return to a perfectly restored world."

Shaking his head, Henry continued, "You know, everyone was so horrible to G... your dad about his always picking magic over the greater good, yet they're all so terrified of having to live _uncursed_ lives without magic in it, they're stuck in some delusion that their old lives were so great, that somehow horrible as their last trip back was, it won't be like that again because _next time_ magic will fix it."

After a beat, Bae recalled, "Mulan told me that there's an old saying in her land, that never again can a kingdom that has been destroyed be rebuilt. She thinks they're a bit mad too." He smirked, adding, "Actually, she said 'They act like fucking Disney cartoon characters, and it's really starting to piss me off!' I don't think she meant for me to hear that. It was after Princess Aurora stopped in to her studio following a class and I was putting away the mats."

Henry fought a laugh. He couldn't even imagine Mulan saying that, but it must have been brilliant. He got the impression that the warrior woman slipped up sometimes around Baelfire, saying things he'd probably said when he was Neal and they commiserated together over losing their friends. Really, Henry felt bad for Mulan. He'd heard about her harrowing tale of helping his mom and grandmother with Aurora, but they never talked about getting Philip's soul back and it seemed like their close friendship had been falling apart already when his dad met them, then Mulan had left the Merry Men (which didn't surprise Henry given Robin's concept of "honor"), and despite being responsible for bringing her to Storybrooke, none of her old friends had tried to help her acclimate - probably, because she didn't understand their bullshit reasons for becoming fiends and lovers with the people who'd tired to murder them.

Henry would have taken a class at her studio if his grandfather and Hook hadn't insisted on being the ones to teach him how to "fight like a man, not a girl"... which given _Mulan's_ track-record in fights meant "how to get your ass kicked and kiss the floor repeatedly".

"It wouldn't be so bad," mused Henry, "if Storybrooke became just another dumpy little New England town. We wouldn't have apocalypses every few months. We wouldn't need special laws for dealing with magical offenses... which I don't think there actually are, which seems pretty stupid. Things could just be _normal_ for once. I'd _really_ like things to be normal."

Baelfire kicked a stone. "I remember wanting that," he sighed. "What amounted to it in The Frontlands, anyway. I thought me and my papa could find it in this world. That didn't work out so well. And I know this is supposed to be a second chance, but... sometimes it just doesn't feel right."

"Yeah," Henry agreed with a grimace, "it really doesn't."

Suddenly, the mine shook again, followed by the sound of cracking and crumbling rock. Henry felt the ground give way beneath his feet and letting out a shout of surprise, his helmet tumbling off as he reached blindly, hands gasping onto the metal rails that remained.

"Give me your hand!" Bae called out, his dirty one reaching out of the darkness and Henry reached back, his heart pounding and his arms straining under his body weight, certain his shoulder was dislocated. It had to be worse for the shorter, slender boy, though to pull him up, but together Henry managed to clamber away from the hole.

"Shit, thanks," he gasped, "that was-"

The crack was loud and singular and Baelfire dropped from view, his own head lamp falling away. Henry gasped and reached forward, but his hands met air, and gripping the splintered edges of the track he watched in horror as the tumbling light dimmed and vanished entirely into the void.

* * *

AN: Much as I wanted to write more of Henry and Baelfire together and get more Victorian lingo, the plot demanded advancing. Sadly, characters on this show just never seem to get a chance to bond as planned. Mulan's saying is from Sun Tzu's _The Art of War_ — "But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life." Foreshadowing?

Next up: The Blue Bitch is back!


	24. The Blue Bitch

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: THE BLUE BITCH**

(In which The Author creates bullshit reasons to remove magic from the equation and Mother Superior wants her sweet crystal.)

"YOU DID WHAT!?" Regina screeched at the Blue Fairy.

The persnickety woman who always held her nose up as though smelling something rotten restated, "After the numerous break-ins, my sisters and I warded the mine against intrusion. Obviously, your son and his friends triggered the spell."

"You cast a spell that would _crush_ anyone who broke into the mine?" Emma exclaimed, her anger causing the headlights on the patrol car to flicker - which earned a sour look from the fairy. She was starting to understand why Gold loathed the woman so much. She didn't even seem to care that _children_ were trapped down there.

"No," Blue snobbishly defended, "we cast a spell that would transport any unlawful entrants into the jail cells at the Sheriff's Station. It's hardly my fault that Miss Swan warded the Station without considering an allowance for fairy magic, resulting in the spell rebounding on itself."

"And destroying the mine," seethed Regina, "thanks in part to your staff of Seven Dimwits here, who dynamited into an unstable cavern and then left to get drunk."

"HEY!" Leroy growled, but at the glare he got from Regina and Emma, chose to shut up.

"Perhaps," interjected Rumplestiltskin, limping over with his cane, "it's time to put an end to your monopoly on the diamond mines, Blue. You might have had the power and the clout to make yourself the robber baron of The Enchanted Forest, but here you can't even fill a single pew in your chapel unless someone dies. Without your heaving sparkly bosom and fluttering wings, your true self is showing, and it's not nearly as pristine as you'd have your fairy dust-addicted devotees believe."

Blue pinned Gold with a glare. "Having your heart purged by grace to protect others from the demon you willingly embraced doesn't make you a saint, Rumplestiltskin. Did you consider that perhaps _this_ is the price for using magic to turn your son back into a child?"

Gold retorted, "Did you _care_ that you might be dooming my son in your pathetic attempt to be rid of both the Dark One _and_ the Dark Curse, never mind that pestilent shadow? _So don't lecture me on the price of magic, you uppity bitch!"_

 _"Don't you are call me a bitch, you repugnant-"_

"ENOUGH!" Emma shouted. "Fighting isn't going to get us anywhere!"

Turning to the Blue Fairy, she demanded, "Can we magically poof to the last place they were supposed to be and get them out?"

"Well, it would require the use of fairy magic to stabalize the interior of the mine so that your magic doesn't disrupt it further."

"Then get to it!" snapped Regina.

They walked to the buckled door of the mine and she placed her wand against it. A burst of blue light washed over it...

"Wonderful!" Regina huffed and attempted to teleport to the spot where the Dwarfs hung their axes, the last place Henry and his... father had been seen. But the purple cloud of smoke conjured her right back where she'd been standing, leaving her dizzy.

Emma exclaimed, "What the hell was that?"

"Fairy dust," stated Gold, scowling at the Blue Fairy. "The diamonds are now resisting magic. A new pocket must have opened up that has yet to be enchanted to answer to her."

"Did you know that," Regina accused, "and were hoping I would splinch myself?"

"I certainly wouldn't have shed a tear, but I'm not nearly so vindictive."

"No," grated Emma, "you're just a shady, manipulative bitch who runs your fairy dust distribution service like fucking Scar Face. You _lied_ to my parents. _You_ are the reason I grew up _alone_ , thanks to your shady shit back alley deal and sticking me with a creepy kid _you_ turned into a 'real boy', probably just so Geppetto would freak the fuck out at the possibility he'd turn back into the puppet _he's supposed to be_ , and then you happily let my mother bitch-slap Geppetto instead of admitting that he was your pawn, a sad chump whose childhood trauma gave him a seriously weird complex that instead of helping him recover from, you enabled it so that you could use it to fuck me over under the bullshit notion that I needed to suffer alone, screwed over repeatedly by this world to 'build character' and keep me from 'growing attached to it' so I'd save your glittery ass from the consequences of what's probably some magical clusterfuck you started during a drunk game of 'Truth or Dare' with Merlin and Ma'ab. And don't even get me started on your racial bigotry and slave labor!"

Emma pointed to the Dwarfs. "Actually, you know what? I'm going there. I's your blind devotion to this bitch that's as responsible for what's happened as her utter lack of compassion. How can you let this cold-hearted bitch continue to brainwash you into breaking your backs so she can help people by teaching them they don't have to help themselves or learn to work together as long as they _pray_ for a fairy godmother to grant their wish? She told you that you had to be a _label_. That your race defines your _purpose_ in life. That you _owe her_ because of 'reasons' she won't even share about whatever creepy as fuck magical crap resulted in grown men being hatched out of _eggs_. She doesn't care about your well-being, she cares about her _business_. She doesn't care about her fairies and their hopes and dreams, their _talents_ , she cares about maintaining her cult of supremacy over lowly mortals, and woe, what _enlightenment_ might come from the blasphemy of a fairy spending too much time amongst humans or Dwarfs consorting with fairies. They might form _labor unions_. They might demand _salaries_ and _health insurance_ instead of just a pint and a pile of hay to sleep in."

"Hey, yeah," Doc suddenly considered, "why don't we have health insurance? Leroy and Walter had to pay for their ER visit, even though they were injured on the job. _You_ appointed Sleepy the driver."

"Isn't that a reckless disregard for public sa-safety?" asked Sneezy before snotting all over the Blue Fairy's habit.

The other Dwarfs all nodded in agreement while the Blue's posture got increasingly stiff and her expression impressively sour. "You wouldn't exist without me!" she snapped, using her want to vanish the boogers. "Your kind would be extinct!"

"Their kind," Gold scoffed, "became endangered because you cared nothing about the subterranian natives of the land you covetted, didn't consider until after the war you funded with fairy magic to get control of the diamond mines resulted in the murder of their women and children, that in your greed to maintain your power over mortals you had all but destroyed the best-suited ones to mine your precious diamonds. You're nothing but a glorified drug lord and an arms dealer, Blue. And you forget. In _this_ world, I own your convent and the _mineral rights_. So unless you want to live with the crazies at the farm compound, you will use your _fairy magic_ to tell us _exactly_ where my son and grandson are."

Simmering, Reul Ghorm relented, "Very well. But even I cannot use magic to retrieve them."

"Of course not," sneered Regina. "You and your magic are nothing if not predictably _useless_."

"Perhaps if Miss Swan had not broken the Black Fairy's wand when she was the Dark One..."

"Maybe you shouldn't have tried to use it against her," said Rumplestiltskin. "Or had a falling out with Morgana in the first place over how to deal with your fallen queen. You overestimated your power, dearie. In this world your wings are clipped. Perhaps it's time you learned to walk without stumbling over your habit."

"All right," stated Emma, "how about this? While Blue does some magical Ouija whatever to get their location, I'll see if the old elevator shaft we used last time is accessible. And you two try the Library elevator."

"I want vacation days!" piped up Dopey and Leroy hit him with his hat.

"Not now, Dopey!"

* * *

AN: Short, but I had to get in that bitchy blue bug, how I loathe her! I really have no clue how they'll explain the Dark One, but my guess is that the Black Fairy, Ma'ab, and Morgana will play into it. Maybe Morgana will be the Black Fairy. Maybe Ma'ab is the original Dark One, so they can add one more evil middle-aged white woman to the list. In A&E's mind, it would be a "twist" for the first and last Dark One to be female. Plus, they sure do seem to hate women while claiming how feminist they are. They'll probably make Blue the Lady of the Lake who's had the real Excalibur all along, and she'll give it to Hook and Arthur will make him a knight for realsies and then everyone will call him 'Sir Killian'. *Barf*

Next up: Emma goes spelunking.


	25. Touching the Void

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: TOUCHING THE VOID**

(In which The Author contradicts the bullshit reasons to remove magic from the equation in the previous scene in order to reinsert magic into the equation... and then never explains how the fuck it make sense.)

Emma had always been a bit claustrophobic. She didn't like the dark either. But nothing would stop her from saving her son... and her son's father who was presently the same (roughly) age as him. As the crew from the fire truck lowered her down she tried not to think the worst, or dwell on the possibility that the mine would collapse on her head and she'd die under a pile of fairy dust blood diamonds that the Blue Fairy was apparently mining to hoard at her convent for some purpose that was almost certainly shady as shit and should have been investigated after the car accident... never mind informed the City Council that the stuff had to be transported using hazardous materials permits and road rules. What if Walter fell asleep parked on the creepy midnight supply train tracks? With their luck, the train would get transformed into a giant town-devouring magical centipede or something!

She really should look into what the deal was with that creepy midnight supply train she'd somehow been completely unaware of until the Second Curse, Emma considered, though, to be fair, she was only in town a couple of weeks aware that it was a crazy magical town before getting kicked out with fake memories, and then she'd clearly become too complacent and just accepted things that were seriously problematic and just laying in wait to turn into the next disaster if they didn't have some kind contingency plan beyond a 'no wearing corsets and cravats or waving fairy wands on Main Street' ordinance.

Some kind of mine safety board ought to be at the top of the list.

When Emma reached the main level where she'd almost died once by a Ring Pop of Doom, she swung herself toward the exterior cage door of the old lift, pried it open, and after giving a tug on the rope, disconnected her harness and headed into the tunnel, the light from her helmet bouncing off a path strewn with large rocks that had come dislodged from the walls and ceiling along with broken beams and twisted cart track.

"HENRY?" she called out. "KID, CAN YOU HEAR ME?"

Emma continued on for a good ten minutes in this fashion before she received an echoing response of, "MOM!'

"HENRY!"

She rushed in the direction of her son's voice.

"MOM, STOP!"

She did, just in time, avoiding stepping off into a crevasse. A rock, kicked by the toe of her boot, went over, and she noted it didn't make a sound, no indication of striking ground somewhere in the darkness bellow.

" _Henry?"_

" _Here!"_

Henry was up against the wall of the cave where the ground hadn't given way, his face covered in dirt.

"Kid, you have to make your way toward me. The fairy dust's made magic... unusable."

Henry nodded and carefully, keeping his back pressed against the wall of the tunnel, scooted toward her until he was well clear of the pit and then Emma pulled him into a tight embrace which he returned. It was several moments before she realized he was crying... and realized that he was alone in the cave.

"Henry, where's-"

" _He fell_ ," Henry managed to get out between sobs, pulling away. "He pulled me up and then the rest of the track gave away and I couldn't- _he was just gone_."

Emma's heart seized. The numbness she'd felt each time Neal left began to close in, the familiarity of it, and it was safe...

"You _have_ to find him, Mom," Henry pleaded. "We can't leave him down there. He was my friend. He was my _dad_ , even if he didn't remember. _Promise you'll find him_."

"I'm promise, Henry," Emma choked out, looking at the hole, remembering the Cannery. Magic had some fucked up sense of irony. And it seemed, no matter what, Neal was destined to die saving his family members. "But first let's get you out of here, okay?"

Henry didn't object, but he didn't say anything either as Emma guided him toward the elevator shaft and helped him into a harness. It took a few minutes to raise them up to the surface and August helped Henry get free and over to where Dr. Whale had arrived to assess injuries. She was glad that her parents, at least, weren't there, probably still at the dance, oblivious as they did an unintended and no doubt horrible homage to that Marty & Bobbi Culp _SNL_ sketch.

"Send me back down," Emma stated, unwilling or unable to say that it wasn't to bring up the other boy as she had her son.

Once she was back in the shaft, Emma released the catch, repelling faster and further, past the mine's upper level... until she very nearly reached the end of line and the tunnel level bellow... where the old elevator had come to rest at the bottom. She had to climb down through its hatch and then pry open the damaged doors; there was no outer cage, being the bottom of the tunnel system. There were no strings of electrical lights on the walls here either, no tracks or other indication of modern Land Without Magic mining other than the elevator. In fact, it appeared to be a completely untouched, natural cave system at this level, the tunnel fairly wide and flat by the elevator but quickly narrowing and sloping into a maize of stalactites and stalagmites and dripping water that left Emma disoriented in the darkness with only the phosphorescent glow of lamplight bouncing off of the rock faces...

Until the light began flickering.

Swearing, Emma pulled her helmet off, dismayed to discover that water had somehow gotten into the battery compartment. She turned it upside down and tried to empty it only for the light to go out completely - and no amount of whacking and shaking the thing worked. Given Regina's near-splinching, she wondered briefly if the Blue Fairy had intentionally given her a faulty helmet in the hopes that she'd die down here with Baelfire

And then she was sobbing, slumped back against the slick wall of the cave, the numbness shattered by a tidal wave of anger and grief.

"Damn it, Neal!" she shouted. "Why do you keep doing this to me? How many goddamned times do I have to lose you!?"

She wasn't expecting an answer, and she didn't exactly receive one... but a faint white glow was suddenly cast on the cave wall in front of her. After momentary confusion, Emma found the glow coming from her... or against her, through the fabric of her shit. Reaching under the collar of her top, she pulled out the swan keychain, the small pendant shimmering with magic.

Heart pounding, Emma leapt to her feet, toward the wall... behind which was another passage.

The glow increased in brightness the further she went, until she emerged into a large cavern, the ceiling which was embedded with glowing crystals - aside from the gaping maw of a recent passage into the mining tunnels. And directly bellow... there was a pool of water, dark and reflecting the light like it was made of obsidian. The closer she stepped to the pool, the brighter the pendant glowed.

Without further thought, Emma stripped to her underwear and dove beneath the surface. The water was frigid and threatened to steal her breath, but she held on and continued down, the glow of the keychain illuminating her way... to the pale visage of a boy pinned beneath the a piece of twisted metal track. Grabbing hold, she pulled until the metal shifted and then lifting Baelfire under his arms, she kicked her way back up toward the shimmering glow, lungs burning for oxygen which she took in after breaking the surface with a sucking gasp before the weight she was carrying nearly pulled her back down.

Fighting her way to the edge of the pool and shivering from cold, Emma finally pulled the body of the boy who was her son's father onto the cave floor beneath the glowing crystals that looked so much, she realized, like the star map he'd made that got them home.

Desperate, she pushed on his chest, trying to restart his heart, with no avail. She tried breathing into his mouth, again with no response, and cursed at how easily her mother had revived "John Doe", how easily she'd saved Killian from that damned water trough, but for them there just never seemed to be enough time.

"Henry's okay," Emma spoke, her voice trembling, after finally slumping against a stalagmite with the unmoving and eerily pale teenage boy who wasn't really a teenage boy. "Even when you didn't know... you still risked your life for him. And I... I'm so sorry," she wept, cradling him as she had that horrible day in the forest. "I'm sorry I didn't choose you. I'm sorry I didn't even try to save you. I'm sorry I said I'd wished you were dead, and I'm sorry I didn't save you that day in the woods. I'm sorry that I spent all that time in the past worrying about my existence and then I had the chance to try to save you and I just... I didn't want to remember how much I missed you. I didn't... I didn't want to go through losing you again. I tried to convince myself that it would be wrong to take dying a hero away from you, but really, I took away Henry growing up with his dad. I took that away from him. And I took that from you. I took _Tallahassee_ away from you. And I'm so sorry.

"I'm sorry that I didn't want to forgive you," Emma cried, "because I was so used to the pain and the anger. And I thought it made me strong, better somehow - when it really made me weak and mean. You were right. I'm the one who's the pathetic jerk. I thought not being with you was easier, but easier isn't better - and sometimes the hardest things in life are the best things. And you... _you_ would have been the best, Neal. The best father, the best friend, the best... you _were_ the best person I ever knew, Baelfire, and you deserved a second chance more than anyone-"

She choked back a sob. "I _will_ always love you. I hope you know that, wherever you are - _You_ will always be my Tallahassee."

Leaning down, she pressed her forehead against his-

As she did, the keychain fell against his chest and the glow intensified, a brilliant burst of light that illuminated the cavern as though it was filled with daylight. Just for a moment. The light infused Baelfire and when it faded, the boy was no more, back to the man he'd naturally grown to be - who sucked in a breath a moment later, brown eyes fluttering open and lips curving into a wry smile.

"No taksies backsies."

Emma let out a sputtering laugh as she helped Neal sit up. Shivering, she demanded, "Are you s-sure you're not still f-fifteen?"

"Pretty sure, but after a couple hundred years, it's hard to shake."

"Yeah, that's s-still weird for me."

"Says the woman sitting in a freezing cave of glowing magic crystals in her underwear. I like the rubber duckies."

"Sh-shut up."

"I'm totally seri-"

Emma pulled him into a tight hug, startling him a moment before he returned the gesture. She had loved his hugs, and it had broken her heart when Henry first hugged her and she knew he had Neal's hugs - and then Neal was there, and he was hugging her again, but she was too afraid to return it, to _need_ that feeling again.

" _Ducks? Really?"_ Regina's snarky voice startled them apart and Emma turned to find the former Evil Queen had a perfect view of her butt. "I knew you had a less than sophisticated wardrobe..."

Emma, refusing to acknowledge her red eyes and tearstained cheeks, shot back, "You're going to make sartorial comments about my underwear? Instead of commenting on Neal not being a kid anymore? Or asking about Henry?"

"It was just a matter of time," she shrugged. "And Puppet Boy radioed that Henry was fine."

"And you still came looking for me?" Neal asked, brows raising. "I'm touched."

"Don't be. I owed Rumple a favor," Regina scoffed, though her heart wasn't really in it. She did give Emma another look that was half bemused and half disgusted, though.

"I see it's colder than a Savior's t-"

"Just shut up and hand me my _unsophisticated_ clothes, Regina."

Smirking, the dark-haired woman uttered, " _As you wish_ ," just for the responding glare she always got when making some taunting reference to Emma Swan's pirate mascot. It was said to be poor taste to speak ill of the dead, but Regina Mills had never cared about that.

* * *

AN: Borrowed a movie title for the chapter title. Sweet documentary. Since when has Emma ever demonstrated that she's claustrophobic? It's one of those intermittent retcon phobias! And, wow, I managed to find some bullshit way of avoiding TLK, wouldn't you know? Funny how that's not a thing anymore! And who'd just love to see Mary Margaret & David doing a Marty & Bobbi Culp impersonation for a mandatory assembly? Someone good at song mashups, please write that!

Next up: Graham has some cameo screentime and August has another vice on top of booze, gambling, and Thai hookers. _Giggidy giggidy giggidy!_


	26. Panty Waste

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: PANTY WASTE**

(In which August's pervert level increases because The Author couldn't resist poking fun at his phallic nose!)

The drive to the Library was quiet. Henry sat in the back of the cruiser, Graham and August in the front. Apparently, his grandpa had called Graham after his mom (Regina) radioed him that she'd found his other mom and they were going to come up that way. He felt sick. He'd already thrown up, to his embarrassment. His dad was dead because of him. And not for the first time.

Graham parked the car and August opened the back door so he could get out. Henry shrugged off the latter's attempt to help, not remotely interested in sympathy from the guy who'd been creeping on his mom ever since he got to town in the "I'm here for you until I'm _just here_ " kind of way. At least Graham had some _honor_... well... and also a girlfriend who satisfied his wolf fetish, but _still_.

Henry had just stepped onto the sidewalk when the front doors opened, Regina stepping out. The former Evil Queen increased her stride to embrace him tightly, but briefly, telling him sternly, "We're having a long talk tomorrow. You, me, Emma, and your father... though I'm not sure which side of the scolding he should be on..."

As she trailed off, and before Henry could properly soak in the part about his father, the Library doors opened again and Emma emerged - with his dad. His _adult_ and very alive dad who was chuckling as Emma complained that it was highly unfair that magic had dried him off while re-aging him, while her long hair was soaking and dripping all over her leather jacket.

"Dad!?" Henry croaked out, eyes wide, and then he propelled himself at Neal, who nearly fell backward but adjusted enough to stay upright and return the hug. It didn't matter that he was _definitely_ too old now to be seen in public hugging his relations.

"Hey, buddy, it's good to see you too... but I _am_ oxygen reliant."

Sheepishly, Henry eased up and then took a step back, hating that his eyes were a bit wet. "I thought you'd died. How are you...?"

"Something to do with the fairy diamonds, I suspect," Neal answered, shrugging, and glancing at Emma. "And your mom."

"True Love's Kiss?" Henry exclaimed, hopeful - and a bit teasing, which earned rolled eyes from his mom.

"Naw, I'm not sure being mostly dead counts as a curse."

"If it was, you'd be immune from repeat exposure by now," muttered Regina, which earned a snort from a rather sour-looking August.

Emma gave him the stink-eye. "You and your magically phallic nose don't get to laugh, Pinocchio."

Neal walked up to August, frowning slightly as he told him, "While I'm glad you didn't die and though Emma might have decided to let bygones be bygones because of your single moment of selflessness - that utterly failed in actually warning anyone that Pan wanted Henry - so go figure on that one considering she could have kept our son if you'd given her the twenty grand - that doesn't mean, now that _you're_ grown up, we're cool. I will take a belt-sander to your junk if you so much as tell Emma a white lie. And you'd better return what you took while fixing that washing machine so it can be properly incinerated considering what you and your actual phallus probably did to those poor bunnies."

August gulped and Emma howled, " _You took_ my underwear!?"

"I... er... they were stuck to the side of the machine and you came over and I panicked and put them in my po- _ahhh!_ "

His nose sprouted an inch and Emma kneed him in the groin "Pervert!"

She removed the badge from her belt and handed it to Graham. "I'm temporarily reinstating you to haul his ass in for _stealing my underwear_."

On the sidewalk now, Rumplestiltskin tutted, "Perhaps you should get yourself checked out by Dr. Whale, Booth. You don't seem to have been created with the patience or cunning to _pine_ in celibacy for Miss Swan's affection."

August just glared while Graham led him back to the car with a sarcastically uttered, "Thanks so much. I get my old job back for a night to tell an old man that his son knobs off to stolen women's underpants."

"So..." Henry remarked, "he's officially a bigger perv than me now, right?"

"I think the jury is still out on that, Kid," Emma told him, amending, "Remind me tomorrow to burn _all_ of my underwear just in case Pinocchio was sniffing in the laundry basket."

Regina quipped, "I'm not sure which is more disturbing, that August stole your panties for improper purposes - or that he stole panties with little bunny rabbits on them for improper purposes. Ducks, rabbits... is there a farm in your underwear drawer?"

"Not all of my underwear has animals on them," Emma groused. "My mother bought a package on sale, but they were the wrong size, and they're comfortable, and why I am still defending my underwear choices to you? You probably wear the most uncomfortable thong you could find just to irritate your ass crack. It would explain a lot!"

"Actually, I don't wear underwear."

" _Mom! TMI!_ " Henry groaned, making a face, which was ignored.

"I fully believe," Regina continued, "that power emanates from the vagina. So why block it?"

"It's not the only thing that emanates," muttered Emma.

"What does that mean?" the former Evil Queen demanded, eyes narrowing.

"Well, you don't exactly smell like forest."

Before Regina could conjure a fireball, Rumplestiltskin cleared his throat, reminding, "I believe you intended to return Henry to the dance?"

Henry threw a glowering look at his grandfather for that one, and to his parents, "Do I have to?"

"Yes, you have to," stated Emma. "You're going to apologize to his grandparents. And help clean up afterward." She jabbed Neal. "You too, Baelfire."

"Oh, come on, Emma, I was _fifteen_ ," Neal complained. "I can't be held responsible for that!"

He looked to his father for support, but the man just looked amused.

"Considering the stunts you pulled as a grown-ass adult?" Emma argued, "I say you can."

"Hey, you _married_ my step father."

"Low blow, Cassidy. I had syphilis and monkey herpes!"

" _Had_ right?"

She glared. He laughed.

"I'll help clean up spilled punch if you dance with me. Last dance is boy's choice," Neal said with a grin and though Emma gave him a look like she wanted to argue just for arguing sake, she sighed and relented.

"Fine. But you'd better not step on my toes."

* * *

AN: August just strikes me as a pervert. The underwear/vagina bit is taken from a scene in _New Girl's_ "Par 5".

Next up: Emma and Neal share a dance. Henry gets some romance. Gretel gets sweet feathered, fury, and possibly scaly revenge.


	27. Dirty Bird Dancing

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: DIRTY BIRD DANCING**

(In which Henry's got a secret finally revealed and Emma and Neal get jiggy with it.)

They rode back to the school in The Bug, Henry in the back as Neal drove, after pulling another "You married my step-dad" to wear down Emma's petulant refusal to give him the keys.

Henry noticed that she looked about as uncomfortable in the passenger seat as when giving him driving lessons and only grew more tense when they arrived and got out. It would be too much for his mom to just... be comfortable with his dad, he supposed. She loved him too much, and it would hurt too much to fail at a second chance, he guessed, compared to Walsh and Hook, the safety nets she could be comfortable with for lack of real emotional attachment if they broke up... or there was an evil witch or out-of-control Dwarf van.

 _Celine Dion_ had transition to the soundtrack from _Dirty Dancing_ , and Henry had to wonder if his grandmother had seen any movies made _after_ he was born.

He noticed Mr. Tillman's tow-truck and Jefferson's old Rambler had double parked out front.

And in the school hallway outside the gym entrance, his grandparents were talking with the two fathers while his friends hung back against the lockers looking glum.

"...drop them off ourselves," Mary Margaret was saying. "And make sure they have detention all week."

As the two men departed, David gestured to the trio. "All right, let's go. I want your butts in the chairs by the punch bowl. You're lucky I don't arrest you all for trespassing..."

Heads hanging, the three quickly ducked into the gymnasium with Prince Charming, the door shutting behind them just before Emma announced their arrival with a, "Sometimes I think Dad enjoys being Sheriff a little too much."

" _Neal!?_ " Mary Margaret gasped.

"Mrs. Blanchard-Nolan," Neal responded with a slight smirk, humor his default for avoiding uncomfortable situations... like how to interact with the woman who basically told you to _fuck off_ when you wanted help getting back to your first love and son then named her kid after you... then spent months barley tolerating you... and the past few weeks teaching your kid self some weird kind of science class that bordered on Creationism; she had picked apart his astronomy essay with all kinds of astrology crap notes. Never mind bewitching some stupid paper heart so he'd have to dance the Mary who only wanted to hang around him because her aunt wanted him to track down a staff that Prince Charming had in his possession; the girl was sweet but so dim her aunt had actually written out instructions on "hints" to drop to find out where David kept it - that he'd picked from her pocket. If Snow White couldn't tell making a mark in a theft plot from a genuine teenage crush, the concept of true love in Storybrooke really as doomed.

"This is..."

"Something we can talk about later," said Emma, heading for the door. "For some reason, and against my better judgment, I promised Neal a dance. And don't you _dare_ start secretly making wedding invitations like the _last_ time I danced with a guy."

"Or _girl,_ " Henry felt inclined to interject as he trailed behind. "Gran enchanted a card so Grace would pick me."

Emma paused in opening the door while the brunet looked guilty. "Okay, we're _definitely_ having a talk tomorrow about who's the parent in this branch of the family tree and your matchmaking obsession. After I build a funeral pyre for my panties..."

"Your panties?"

"August has a stolen women's panty fetish. I'm not sure if he sniffs them or wears them or polishes wood with them. But he was all up in my laundry last week while fixing the washer."

Snow White's eyes widened. "He fixed our dryer last month. I haven't been able to find my..." She made a face and sighed. "Sometimes I really think Geppetto carved him wrong."

Neal followed the two women inside, holding the door for Henry to join them in the darkened, crape-paper festooned room. Mary Margaret said some parting words to Emma and then headed for the stage to announce the last dance while the blonde said she was getting some hopefully-spiked punch, AKA: liquid courage. Neal decided not to bring up her attempt at sobriety and Dr. Whale's AA meetings which he knew she'd been attending for several months now as he was pretty sure the only thing in the punch besides a buttload of sugar was the luminous potion he'd caught Gretel pouring in earlier.

As for Henry, he was distracted.

"You should ask him," Neal spoke up, and at Henry's confused look, nodded toward the table where Emma was chugging punch. "Hansel. You should ask him to dance."

Startled, Henry croaked out. "What?"

"Hansel," Neal repeated. "He's totally into you."

"He... he is?"

Neal rolled his eyes. "Teenagers can be so oblivious. Or maybe it's just everyone here grew up in a heterosexual-centric world that revolves around the hereditary importance of making babies. Either way, it didn't take a genius to figure out why you hung around someone with Gretel's toxic personality, particularly _after you slept with her_. She seems like the blackmailing type."

Henry frowned, uncomfortable. "You're not... disappointed? I mean... that I'm... that I don't... like girls?"

Neal smiled. "Henry, why would I be disappointed? So you're not gonna fall in love with a fairy tale princess, so what? Far as I can tell, the vast majority of 'em are spoiled airheads. Actually, the princes aren't much better."

Giving Henry's shoulder a squeeze, he told him, "All I want, buddy, is for you to be happy. The bits of the person you might one day want to spend your life with is irrelevant as long as you make each other happy... preferably in the least self-destructive and quasincestuous way this family can manage," he concluded with a smirk.

He gave his son a pat on the back. "Go on."

As Henry headed off, Emma returned, a bit tense. "Punch wasn't spiked."

"You need alcohol to dance with me?" he inquired as he held out his hand.

"I drink when I'm nervous... or upset... or... it's a problem, I get it, and I haven't for awhile, because I have a family history of alcoholism and Dr. Frankenstein is my sponsor, which isn't weird at all," Emma sighed as she accepted, moving a hand to his shoulder and trying not to shiver at his own hand upon her waist.

"It was always... a thing," she continued, "but it got worse being with-"

"A guy who was a functional alcoholic for three centuries?" Neal quipped.

Emma grimaced and told him, "I never wanted to hurt you, Neal. I pulled you back into a life where you felt even more unwanted, and I'm so sorry."

"I know," Neal exhaled. "I don't blame you. And I get regret. I'm never gonna forgive myself for leaving you - and not coming to find you."

"I know you were afraid. I've been afraid too," Emma said with a sigh, then amended, wincing, "What I said outside Granny's, it's not true, you know? I mean, I never thought about it that way, not even after the cops... I didn't even know it was illegal in Oregon until I found out I was pregnant and the prison councilor..." She shook her head. "I really... I did want to be with you."

Neal let out a sigh. "And I really wanted to be with you. I know we can't recapture that... not exactly innocence, but... ignorance?" He shrugged. "A lot has happened, we're different people, but I want that too."

"So do I. I just... you and me... I don't know how to do this. There's so much... hurt there."

Neal smile knowingly. "And it's always gonna be there, Emma. I knew when I was looking for a way to get back to you that it'd be a long shot for you to change your mind on us. I'm still okay with that. As long as I get to be a part of yours and Henry's lives, that's more than I ever thought I'd get, and it's more than enough. I won't hold you to a death bed confession. We've been down that road."

"You're taking back 'no takesies backsies'?" Emma questioned, brows furrowing.

"I'm giving you an out," Neal said, searching her eyes before asking, "Are you _sure_ this is what you want?"

Emma remembered asking him that in a motel room so long ago and his response: _"What I really want is you."_ Life was so much easier then. But easy wasn't always better. Neal was her first love, and if they tried to start over and it didn't work out, then all of those good memories... memories that had only been 'good' for a comparatively short amount of time given how they'd ended would be damaged. It was a reason not to try at all, but not trying for something amazing now out of fear of losing something long over was pretty cowardly. She was still afraid; after all of the terrifying magical crap she'd faced, having Neal in her life scared her the most. But she was going to do it, because being a hero was doing what scared you the most.

"Yes. No more running," she answered and Neal smiled, that grin that transformed his whole face, that had warmed the frozen corners of her heart from their very first meeting. For the first time she saw Baelfire in him, the Lost Boy she'd struggled to connect him with in that hovel in Neverland, the boy who'd just wanted to find home.

Still smiling, Neal proposed, "Then how about we start with a cup of coffee tomorrow and see what happens?"

"I think I'd be okay with that," she answered, relieved, and surprisingly more excited than she expected. _"Life is made up of moments..."_ her father had told her on the beach that day, and they both deserved some good ones. Coffee could be a good one. Dancing here, tonight, was a good one too, she thought. It wasn't a fairy tale ball with fancy clothes and royalty, just geeky kids in cheap taffeta and crape paper hung from the ceiling. But she'd never had a school dance either, and truthfully, exciting as that one ball had been, she'd take jeans and dancing to bad 80's pop tunes over that pomp and circumstance any day. The regal stuff was fun for a one-off adventure, but it wasn't in her wheelhouse.

Speaking of, she'd never have thought of Neal as being good at dancing - or even knowing how. She opened her mouth to ask only to end up distracted, completely blind-sided by the sight of Henry dancing with Hansel, the two clearly trying to work out who was supposed to lead with the sort of uncoordinated fumbling she'd have expected from Neal. It was one of those 'light bulb' moments, and all of the little questions, some she hadn't even thought to ask, were answered - and she felt pretty dumb.

"Our kid is gay," Emma uttered, brows furrowing. It seemed _so_ obvious now. Really, how did she not figure that out after Henry obsessed over making a wine and chocolates breakup basket for Regina? She'd worried that his obsession with Regina toed the oedipal complex line at the time, but this made so much more sense! And, honestly, in that respect, was a relief, because this family had enough quasincest going on.

Shaking her head, Emma uttered in bewilderment, "How the hell did I miss that?"

"Well, you were brain-damaged," Neal pointed out.

" _You_ knew?"

"Being fifteen had its advantages. Easier to pick up the subtitles of teenage drama while being part of it," Neal answered and shrugged a little. "Plus, my best friend _is_ a lesbian."

It took a moment for Emma to figure that out, then her eyes widened. "Wait, Mulan is... _no wonder_ Hook never hit on her. How the hell did he pick up on that before me!?" she huffed.

"Really? Three hundred years of chasing ass and all that time spent on a boat with just dudes? Guy's gotta refine his gaydar for the limited amount of time available on supply runs on the off chance all the local whores are currently blowing some other guys."

Emma threw him a sour look. "Okay, fine. You've made your point."

Neal flashed a grin, then amended, "I gotta say, though, it is kinda sad I'm the one that figured out Hansel wasn't enduring his dad's auto shop classes because of some super macho obsession with cars or to ogle Miss Muffet's tuffet while checking a dipstick _before_ Henry. I mean, come on, even in the Enchanted Forest, I'm pretty sure no completely heterosexual men wore pink cravats and waist coats. Guess our kid's gaydar is about as emotionally accurate as his mom's super power lie-detector."

" _Really_?" Emma huffed. "You're going to insult my lie detecting skills _too_?"

"When you're emotionally compromised, Em, your 'lie detecting skills' suck. Admit it. Which in this town, pretty much means you're surrounded by kryptonite."

"Okay, fine, my super power is occasionally unreliable, Mr. 'I trusted Pinocchio with all my money'."

"Yeah... wasn't my best moment," Neal conceded with a grimace, turning serious. "Look, Emma, I want you to know, if I could go back and make a different choice, be there for you and our son, I would in a heartbeat."

"I know. If I could go back and keep him, I would," Emma replied, a bit teary-eyed. "Twenty-twenty hindsight, right?"

"Yeah. Seems to take this family more than just the one fuck up to get it right, though," chuffed Neal.

"Does seem that way," Emma groaned, then told him sincerely as the song came to a close, "You're a good father, Neal. Even when you were gone, your determination to fight for this family lived on in our son. And I'm still figuring out that it's not about the time that you missed and the things you didn't do, it's about what you do with the time you have that measures the kind of parent you are."

"I hope so," Neal sighed, and bent forward, pressing his forehead to hers.

It felt almost as if the magic around them was starting to sing as he leaned closer and she tipped up her chin-

Suddenly, there was puff of purple smoke and Emma was replaced with a large white swan. In fact, all throughout the gymnasium, students, teachers, and parental chaperons alike had been turned into animals whilst Gretel leaned sniggering by the punch bowl.

No one had been spared. _Everyone_ had been drinking the Kool-Aid - including Snow White, now a blue bird perched on the microphone stand and proving that not all birds could carry a tune, and Prince Charming, who'd been transformed into a sheep that was apparently threatened by his sheep reflection in the shiny front of the bass drum... which he set about ramming.

Turning his gaze back to Emma, Neal thought if a swan was capable of glaring, this one was definitely doing so. Swan Emma Swan trumpeted loudly while flapping her wings.

Fighting to keep a straight expression, Neal crouched down to eye level with the swan that looked every bit a real swan, save the eyes... which he swore gave him a look that said, _"If you laugh, I will bite you in a very private area."_

Neal couldn't resist remarking, "You do have to appreciate the irony, though, right?"

* * *

AN: Another cop-out on the Swanfire kiss! I am SO evil! Did you see the Henry-is-gay plot twist coming? Approve? Disapprove? I wanted Henry to fly in the face of the show's not-so-modern take on classical misogynist heterosexual fairy tales. And what animals do you think the other characters turned into? Don't worry, it was just a harmless prank and they all turned back by sunrise, though Gretel got a full month of detention... which was totally worth it for the number of hits she got on her YouTube video!

Next up: You'd think it would be sunshine and rainbows now. But what fun would that be?


	28. Cursed

**CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: CURSED  
**

(In which things are not happily ever after!)

"Neal, just talk to me!" Emma exclaimed, bewildered, annoyed, and still seriously horny as she nearly tripped in the bedsheets to follow him.

It had been such a good day, she'd thought, the culmination of the past five weeks of their attempt at dating, making a fresh start, by meeting for coffee and talking about their lives. They'd reminisced about their Bonnie and Clyde days, discussing the trials and tribulations of dealing with a teenager who was chomping at the bit to get his driver's license and was determined to take his test with the Bug even though he'd yet to master it's tricky clutch - while trying to figure out how to fit into a town defined by a heterosexual world view and run by grandparents who'd probably be on their 19th kid by now if there had been no Curse and seemed as inclined to unintentionally say something hurtful and insulting while attempting to be understanding as actual grandparents collecting social security.

Henry and the (good) past had been their glue while trying to figure out a future, and it had been... _really_ nice.

Nice that was most recently Neal's birthday party at Granny's, which Emma had thought would be a good way to erase the bad memories of the funeral reception and the weirdness of her brother's coronation, and put an end once and for all to her not meeting him for coffee that day. And all had been going so well. Until Neal was pushing Emma's hands away from the fly of his jeans and mumbling that he had to go.

"I told you, this is moving too fast," Neal repeated as he shoved his feet into his shoes, the same ugly pair he'd been buried wearing, that he'd only put on that day in New York because they were comfortable for walking. He'd have replaced them if Purbeck's selection wasn't out of an LL Bean catalogue and his son and stepfather had together left him with a shitload of credit card debt, so he couldn't order anything to ship on the creepy-ass midnight supply train. "I don't want you regretting it."

"Me or you?" Emma countered.

"Maybe both."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Neal raked his hand through his hair and finally looked at her. "It means we have serious issues, Emma, that aren't going to be resolved by a birthday pity fuck."

She gasped, appalled. "Is that what you think this is?"

"I don't know what it is any more than any other screwed up relationship you've taken too far too fast," Neal countered. "And I'm probably not much different. But I don't want this to be just... because we're feeling horny."

"I didn't think it was," Emma countered, and pleaded as Neal headed for the door, "Can't we just... talk about this?"

"I think I'm going to need you to put on some underwear before you say anything else."

Emma grabbed the afghan from the couch and continued, "I thought... things have been going really good and today was fun, and it seemed like... a natural progression. I thought you felt it too."

Neal sighed. "I thought I did too, but..." He trailed off and sighed.

"What is it?" Emma demanded.

"I don't want to hurt you, Em..."

"You're hurting me by not telling me what's going on!"

Letting out another sigh, Neal finally answered, unable to meet her gaze, "Turns out I can think a lot more positively in the hypothetical about being intimate with the woman who married my stepfather than actually doing it."

Well, that wasn't what Emma had been expecting. "Oh," she rasped out and felt her cheeks grow hot. "I didn't... that... bothers you?"

" _Of course_ it bothers me," Neal told her, trying not to sound annoyed, but rather failing. "It's not exactly easy to forget that you've had sex - _lots and lots of sex_ \- with my asshole step-dad, probably in this very apartment."

"We never... things never got that far here," Emma stumbled out. "I mean, it was my parents place-"

"That he occupied like he practically lived here. It's not just the sex."

Neal was heading for the door again.

"Neal, wait!" she called out, grabbing his arm.

He pulled away, frowning. "I'm not like you. I'm not going to suddenly change my mind and fall into bed with you just because you try and stop me from leaving."

"That's not fair."

"I think it is. The Emma I fell in love with wouldn't have gone right to getting laid just because we had one good night out. Or expect me to just get over all of that crap because you want things to work out your way. That's _him_ talking. Being with him that... misogynistic narcissistic sociopath changed you, Emma. And I know I didn't believe in our love when it mattered and that played a part in how you changed even before you got here, but I guess... I thought you were better than that, braver than I was."

"Well, I'm not," Emma shot back. "I wanted to be. I wanted to do the right thing, but I didn't. I just... I wasn't in a good place in my life, Neal. I made a lot of bad choices. All I can say is that I was trying to... outgrow the past, the baggage that I'd been carrying my whole life. I loved you since I was seventeen, but for so long I couldn't have you and I couldn't give you up. Until I could do that no one else would stand a chance. So, you dying... it was like I was finally given a reason that I had to, and then finding out twice that you weren't dead... all of those feelings... I didn't want to face them. It was easier not to. But I never meant to hurt you by being with him. And I don't want to be _like_ him. I know... I know... your Dad's right that once you start changing, it's not so easy to change back, but I'm trying. I want to be the person you loved, who loved you."

Neal offered a tight smile. "I do too. I really do. But... I'm not sure we can ever get back to that place, that we can find Tallahassee."

"You really believe that?" Emma asked. She couldn't bring herself to ask 'You don't believe in me?'

Neal shrugged uncomfortably, then confided, "You know what kept me going in that Vault of the Dark One to even have a soul left worth pulling back? My belief in you, my love for you and Henry. So, to find out that the woman I loved, that I died trying to get back to, you ended up becoming the Dark One and the man who ruined my family was the one to save you _and_ got to have that family with you, raise _my_ son? It's not easy to get over that. And I get that I'm being kinda hypocritical cause I left you in jail, even if I didn't mean for you to end up there, but I also never expected forgiveness for that. I just... I need time. I need... to make peace with that. And I need to know, to _believe_ , that you really want this for the right reasons, that you want _me,_ not just because you feel guilty."

"It's not guilt," Emma insisted. "I want you for _you_ , Neal."

"Yeah, see, you say that now," he argued, "but have you really thought about what that means? Cause you gotta admit, I'm not your type. I'm nothing like Killian."

"A misogynistic narcissistic sociopath?" she tried for humor, but it fell flat.

"A classic storybook fairy tale archetype," Neal countered. "Tall, handsome, suave, with some legendary literary pedigree and flowery words. With him, you got an epic romance in a book - two, actually - in which I was just a footnote. With him you got to know what it was like to grow up with your birthright and fall in love in a classical fairy tale with castles and balls with banquets. With me, you lived out of a car and ate out of dumpsters. You got a forgettably ordinary love story recorded by no one, unless you count the state of Arizona's department of corrections."

"Because _so_ much good came out of those fairy tale stories being written down," Emma stated. "I don't _care_ if we're not in a book, Neal."

"But you _liked_ being in those books, Emma," he argued. "Admit it. You can't deny that you enjoyed it. So, can you really say that what made you happy then would make you happy now? Cause you're not that orphan thief anymore. And I'm not a prince or a rogue or a poet. And if I can't get a knighthood for dying to save an entire town, I'm pretty sure there's no 'Sir Baelfire' in my future, not that I'd even want that, because it's not who I am. Killian, maybe he aspired to be your knight in shining armor, but I'm not the armor type. I'm not looking for epic adventures. I'm not dashing or eloquent like your circle of legendary super friends, Emma. I'm just _ordinary_."

"You are _not_ ordinary," returned Emma. "You've done _amazing_ things, Neal. And so what if you're not some literary legend with chiseled looks? You really think I care about that? You think I _want_ endless epic adventures?"

"Honestly, Emma," he answered, "I don't know. I mean, back in New York, you couldn't exactly wait to point out what a crappy life I'd made for myself with my apartment full of junk. And seems to me that when the shit's hitting the fan around here, that's when you're in your element."

"Because I'm the Savior. It's my _job_ ," she shot back. "I _have_ to step up, whether I want to or not. What I _want_ is a regular life. With _you_. And I only said you didn't have a lot going on in yours because I was angry and I wanted to make my life seem better than yours. Which it wasn't. You had more in your one apartment than I had in ten. I was... angry that you had all of that stuff that meant something to you, but I'd never managed that."

"So angry that you trashed it all after I died," Neal stated, causing her to avert her eyes.

"Ask yourself, Emma, if the Dark Curse had never been cast, if it never existed to bring us together to make the kid who got you here to break it, would Princess Emma have chosen the pirate or the peasant son of the Dark One? You'd probably have fallen in love with Killian on some smuggling run, run off to become a pirate or some shit, and maybe we'd have met in Neverland and I'd have just been a weird, moody boy, because we'd have had nothing in common.

"I mean, really, other than sharing a son that neither of us raised and a whole lot of pain and disappointment, Emma, what _is_ our story?"

"That we were two people looking for home who found it with each other and who keep finding each other!" Emma exclaimed, her eyes filling with tears. "And however things would have played out if Regina hadn't cast that curse, it doesn't matter, because _she did_. We _did_ meet and we _did_ fall in love. And sharing a son, Neal, that's the best part of our story. You gave me the best thing I've ever done. Who made me realize that it was wrong trying to make you disappear, even if remembering was painful.

"I don't care if we have a castle or live out of a car, Neal. We had nothing _but just being with you_ made me happy. Even when our lives sucked, you being there made me happy. And it had nothing to do with some fairy tale archetype. Before I got to this town, my whole life, I wasn't anyone special. You were the first person who really saw that I was worth something, not for selfish reasons. And that's what makes you so amazing, that you see the good in people, and that you risk your own happiness for others. That makes you better than all of those legends, Neal. That you're a good, kind, brave person. And whether or not Princess Emma would be able to see that, _I'm not her_. And _I'm choosing you_. I don't care about epic adventures and grand romantic gestures and all of that chivalry crap. _I just want to be with you!_ I thought that's what you wanted too," she finished, crying now.

"I do want that..."

"Then can we just... can we start this again? Pretend all of this," she gestured to her makeshift robe, "didn't happen. I'll get dressed and make coffee or we could play video games?"

Neal let out a sigh. "I need time, Emma. I need to get... you and _him_ out of my head. And I can't do that here. Not with the... ghosts of you together," he concluded, reaching out, briefly grasping the slightly tarnished brass-plated circlet she wore, had worn when he met her again in New York, that now held meaning he couldn't easily forget. "It still hurts too much being surrounded by this life that I was never a part of, that went on without me, surrounded by all of these reminders of how little an impact I made on my own family, how easily I was replaced and forgotten."

"I'm sorry," Emma uttered, starting to lose the battle with her tears. "I just want us to be okay."

Neal shook his head. "I don't know if we can. Everything good we had, it's stacked up against the rest of it, the good you had without me, the pain I caused you and you caused me. Sometimes it just feels like we're-"

"Cursed?" Emma tearfully finished.

"Yeah."

"True Love's Kiss is supposed to break any curse," she stated, hating how naive that sounded.

Neal gave her a sad smile and he leaned in, brushing his lips against hers. Of course there was no flash of light.

"Thank you."

"For what?" Emma asked, confused.

"I did have fun tonight and I'm grateful for the party. First birthday I've celebrated in a couple hundred years. All things considered, it was a good day, just for that."

And then he stepped out, shutting the door after him.

Tears continuing to fall, all Emma could think was that she really needed a drink... and a therapy session with Archie. Instead, she'd have to settle for hot chocolate and unwanted self-reflection. Like it was probably a big deal that she'd never really equated sex with love, let herself be that emotionally invested or vulnerable in the actual physical act... which was probably why she picked men who naturally divorced emotion from sex, who appreciated it primarily for the intense physical act. That _Fifty Shades_ kind of stuff that was like snatching life from the jaws of death, riding a high... and getting addicted to that, because it felt good without the risk of the looking into someone's eyes and seeing their soul and your future children love song kind of crap.

She was pretty sure she'd actually divulged her hatred of Brain Adams to Neal during some discussion about romance before they got around to getting naked together...

Emma let out a sigh, as she picked up her discarded clothes from the floor.

And Neal's scarf.

She held it close, inhaling his scent that clung to the woolen fibers. She'd heard somewhere that women subconsciously feel happy and safe when they smell the scent of the person they're in love with. It had to be the pixie dust, alcohol, and STDs that made her feel remotely safe and happy with Killian, because clearing out his closet with its scent of stale rum, sweaty leather, and Ye Old Enchanted Forest cologne had made her physically sick to her stomach.

Neal might believe that her thoughts kept going back to her ex, but it was only with regret at ever getting involved with him in the first place. And she hadn't been thinking of cuddling and kissing Killian in just about every corner of the loft when she invited Neal in; she'd been thinking about that motel room and the happiest moment of her life and the excitement and relief that maybe they could actually recapture that best part of them, make a new best memory where they got to fall asleep in each other's arms _in a bed_ and wake up together the way she'd always wanted to then, that she'd so briefly dreamed they would in Tallahassee. But now the place felt haunted, even more-so than after her fight with Henry. Like son like father, apparently. They both had a way of getting under her skin... or into her head in a way she didn't like.

Obviously, moving back in here hadn't been such a good idea.

Maybe it was just another facet of her nasty habit -screwing up other people's happy endings with keepsakes that no longer held meaning if they ever really did.

...

When Henry stepped into the Loft, it was to the scent of cinnamon and smoke and his mother sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of cocoa . She looked up, startled.

"Shouldn't you be at Regina's?"

"Roland's stomach ache turned into a fever and she didn't want me getting sick," Henry answered as he dropped his bag to the floor. "Figured I'd sneak in and crossed my fingers that you and Dad weren't making tacos," he said wryly before joining her in the kitchen and noticing her red-rimmed eyes and nose, the extra dash of cinnamon on her untouched cocoa, and The Book on the table open to a drawing of his dad as a kid. "Guess I didn't have to worry about that. Dad's not here?"

"He left before any tacos were made," Emma answered and sighed. "We... I think maybe we're taking a break. Or we're broken up. I'm not entirely sure, just that it's... complicated."

Henry frowned. "Why? I thought things were going really good between you guys. You were bordering on excessive PDAs at the party."

"We were not," Emma grumbled.

"Well, that's if you only define excessive by your previous standards of basically having fully clothed sex in public complete with sucking noises and ass-grabbing," Henry snarked. "Like, you should have arrested yourself for public indecency it was so bad. So, comparatively, the nose rubbing thing is really more excessively cute like Grandma and Gramp's kind of gross than my mom and Robin having sex under her dad's corpse gross."

Emma let out a sigh. "Yeah, well, I think Neal is leaning more toward our prospective relationship being akin to the second one. I guess there's a difference between holding hands with the woman who slept with your step father and... you know."

"Doing the deed that gave me life?" Henry retorted while heading into the kitchen to get his own cup of cocoa.

"You don't need to get cheeky. Or any more than you already are," Emma shot back.

"Keeps me from being permanently scarred for life," Henry joked, then frowned a little as he discovered where the burnt smell was coming from, and it wasn't a failed attempt at cooking. In the sink were charred pieces of paper, pages from The Book, that from a remaining page number and a corner of red he recognized as the story of how his grandparents met - with the help of Prince Charles and Princess Leia.

"You burned the chapter you changed?"

Emma frowned deeply. "It's not worth having. It's the _wrong_ story."

Shaking her head, she lamented, "I should have made a deal with Isaac, set things right before Gold let him run wild with our lives. I wouldn't be surprised if he _knew_ Neal was in the Vault. Hell, I'm _sure_ The Apprentice did. But they wanted him to stay dead just to write that... mess and mess with you. And I fell for it. And I fell in love with the wrong guy and now I'm... tainted, and your dad's convinced that we only met to make you, that the whole... son of the Dark One and daughter of true love doesn't mean anything more than that, that if there was never a Dark Curse we'd never have fallen in love and had you. Or maybe Pan would have gotten us stoned on pixie dust 'til we did it in a cave, but Killian would have been the hero who rescued me and we'd fall in love and have a big royal bullshit wedding... or something, even though I only kissed _him_ because of pixie dust and a buttload of lies," she snorted.

"Do you believe that?" Henry asked. "I mean, that I'm the only reason you and Dad met?"

"No. I used to. That's where I screwed up. Where I let Neal down," Emma admitted tearfully. "I forgot that magic can't make people fall in love. Not _truly_. And because of that, I didn't fight for him, for us. Neal's right that I was selfish, just like Gold. I didn't want to remember that I failed. And now... I think I've ruined Tallahassee for all of us, Kid," she concluded, dejected.

"You can't just give up, Mom," Henry countered, sitting down next to her. "You have good memories that you can build on, right? And one day they'll outweigh the bad if you just give it time. That's what Gram and Gramps always say."

"Yeah, but those memories are from a long time ago, Henry, and your grandparent say a lot of idealistic crap that sounds infinitely wise and romantic when you're a kid - but when you grow up and aren't high or brain damaged, they don't actually apply to most people. And they definitely don't seem to apply _here_. Here it's just a lot of hurt and... judgmental family members sticking their noses in our business."

Henry shrugged. "So, leave. We could take a vacation soon as school is out. We never really get to spend time _just the three of us_ , what with the 'judgmental family members' always around. And you'd get to not be the Savior for awhile. And I'd get driving practice!"

Emma raised a brow. "Kid, if you think I'm letting you drive out of here with a license from a town that doesn't exist..."

"So, we can stop somewhere and I'll get a legit one," Henry argued.

* * *

AN: This was a special two POV extended chapter! Emma's line about loving Neal since she was seventeen, if I recall correctly, is from an episode of _Call the Midwife_ , though I can't remember which one.

Next up: Graham!


	29. Margaritaville

**TWENTY-NINE: MARGARITAVILLE**

(In which Graham and Bo Peep have a problem with Civil Forfeiture and the Bail System, and Charming's a bigger douche than you thought.)

April was a miserable month. It rained every day and Emma's hours were spent at the Station doing paperwork. By the time May rolled around with Mother's Day looming, Emma just wanted a break from the monotony, the weather, and two more lawsuits - one filed by the man Cora killed to use his body to impersonate Archie and another by a fisherman that she'd turned into a fish... who was then caught by another fisherman and _eaten for dinner_ and with his death lost his boat to an auction where Hook had purchased it with a bag of doubloons and _then_ gave it to Smee after regaining the _Jolly Roger_ for a cut of his catch; at least Smee had been happy to give the man back his ship in exchange for getting his former captain's vessel, but lack of a investigation into the missing persons reports in both cases left the Sheriff's Department liable for negligence.

Another deposition was _not_ something Emma was looking forward to.

Nor the absence of - or worse, getting the cold shoulder from - Neal at Granny's. Which had left her buying overpriced coffee in cups with shitty lids that didn't stay on at the coffee shop down the street. Hence the coffee stain on her shirt as she answered a call from Miss Ginger - the old woman found standing on her front stoop and shouting "Quick catch that cat. It stole my wallet" - by chasing after a tabby cat, through backyards and allies, rather certain the cat had _not_ stolen anything short of maybe the "reformed cannibal" witch's sanity.

This was not the sort of police work Emma would normally stoop too, but it was a distraction from the feeling of rejection, a gnawing sensation she suspected Neal had experienced both after Neverland and after his return. What she'd felt after discovering his fiancée, and his "I need her" paled next to the feeling now that wouldn't ease up and was probably giving her an ulcer. The sad truth: she was desperate just to run into him and to exchange a simple 'hello' - while craving more. And not even _sex_ more.

With Killian, when he was avoiding her because of the kiss-curse thing or any other issue during their relationship, it was about the all-consuming distraction of his physicality that inevitably lead to make-up sex. With Neal... she just wanted her friend. She didn't have Elsa or Lily anymore, at least not without complicated inter-dimensional communication that conflicted with her attempt to cut back on powerful magic, and August... well... he was a pervert. Regina... they were always going to be _frenemies_ more than anything else, particularly after the whole her murdering Graham thing, and sometimes it felt now like her step-grandmother was rubbing it in _her_ face that she had the passionate romance.

Lately, though, Emma no longer actually thought Regina and Robin were anything to emulate and made her a bit regretful that she'd risked her soul and sanity for that marriage of a hot mess and a trainwreck. Actually, she was also regretting helping Ashley keep her baby, considering Ella turned out to have the IQ of a _Teen Mom_ reality star and somehow ended up in charge of Mommy & Me even though she accidentally let her kid eat some magic mushrooms which caused Alexandra to turn into a boy and not age for over a year, but apparently that and psycho witches trying to use newborns as a human magical sacrifice was just the usual parenting problems for fairy tale characters.

That, or being stupid was a requirement of being a fairy tale princess, Emma considered, because she had sure made lot of dumb choices herself, culminating with some weirdly codependent, self-destructive gratitude fueled by pixie dust, spirochetes, and a hell of a lot of denial.

What rankled Emma the most was that no matter what, Killian Jones was always going to be someone who'd played a significant role in her life. It was a fact that she couldn't escape, and one that seemed to be an immovable obstacle between her and Neal. She understood why he felt the way he did. But understanding didn't equal acceptance, because if she accepted that he would never get over it, then there was no hope of ever finding Tallahassee.

On that morose thought, Emma turned into another alley, this one with no outlet, and a honed in on a rustling sound in the stacked boxes next to a smelly dumpster.

What followed was not her most graceful moment as Sheriff, but Emma managed to grab the cat without having to use magic or getting scratched - the latter which couldn't be said for her leather jacket. The cat was a mangy thing with patches of fur that looked burnt to go with clearly melted whiskers.

Grimacing, Emma darkly mused that it wasn't really a surprise to find someone was torturing animals in Storybrooke. She sometimes wondered if the Enchanted Forest had a higher percentage of homicidal sociopaths than this world... or maybe it was just that Regina had targeted all of her enemies who just happened to be, by percentage, those more prone to sociopathy and sadism.

...

Ten minutes later, Emma was pulling up outside the Pet Shelter. It was her _luck_ that Graham was behind the counter handing over a hedgehog (named "Sonic" of course) to a woman with a small child wearing oven mitts. As the pair headed off, his gaze found hers and Emma crushed the uneasy feeling in her stomach. It wasn't an _in love_ flutter, and had never really gotten past attraction back then, but it _was_ a deep abiding affection and respect. And it was a lot of guilt. If she'd believed, she could have saved him. And then maybe they would have fallen in love... and she _wouldn't have_ with Hook... but probably not Neal either... _but_ she would have been better off with any alternative to Hook. She _definitely_ would have been a different, kinder, _better_ person these past years if she'd had a partner who cared about her well-being unselfishly and who wanted the best for Henry - and didn't have Enchanted Forest VD.

"Sheriff Swan," Graham greeted.

"You don't have to call me that," she retorted.

"I was under the assumption you'd dropped the 'Jones'."

"I never legally took it, actually," Emma admitted, something she'd not told Killian or her parents who were enamored of that patriarchal crap. She might have only taken 'Swan' because it was the first and only name she had and in spite of the pain attached to it, but it was hers, and if nothing else, the Dark One's dagger had proven how deeply she'd become tied to it.

Yowling from the box forestalled further awkward conversation and Emma set it on the counter, explaining, "Cat behind Miss Ginger's house. Looks abused."

Graham opened the box, revealing the pitiful creature and his genuine look of anger and compassion for the ally cat made Emma feel even worse. Sometimes if felt like she'd lost her capacity for empathy even before she became the Dark One, and it was only since the accident that it had been jarred back into working order... though it often seemed quite rusty from disuse.

As Graham handed the cat off to the veterinarian, she blurted out, "The Department offer still stands."

He sighed. "Emma, much as I enjoyed the work, I don't think-"

"I know it's weird, that you were Sheriff, but we don't even really do the deputy designation thing you, know, and-"

"It's not the title or pay grade or dental plan," Graham interrupted. "Those last moments we shared..."

"Oh... right," Emma uttered, wincing. "I'm... I'm sorry that I couldn't... that we... you have to know if you hadn't died, Graham, we might have... and to be honest, things between me and Neal right now... I'm not sure we even have a shot at a second chance, but I'm trying to focus on getting my own shit together, and I thought you were happy with Ruby-"

"That's not what I meant," he cut her off.

"Oh." Emma flushed, embarrassed, then furrowed her brow in confusion. "Then what?"

Graham grimaced and placed his palms flat on the counter. "I was attracted to you, Emma, I won't deny that, but it wasn't a physical attraction as much as it was to your dedication to justice, to not taking Regina's or anyone's crap. And it was a huge disappointment to return only to discover that you'd completely sold out, become as much Regina's lackey as I ever was. I spent _twenty-eight years_ doing the dirty work of a corrupt institution that favored intimidation and evidence tampering over justice, Emma, and, quite frankly, given what's become of the Storybrooke Sheriff's Department under your tenure, I regret giving you that badge to fight against Regina's corruption. Because all you've done is emulate it."

Emma faltered. "You... you think I'm corrupt?"

"You have willingly let murderers run free, _worked with murderers as your allies_ , arrested people for such criminal offenses as spilling wine on your dress during dates, violated Miranda Rights on a regular basis just because you were channeling Regina's holier-than-thou bitchiness, and until recently you were fornicating with an unrepentant rapist-murderer," Graham argued. "I thought you'd care enough to avenge my death, but instead you became best friends with the woman who _raped me for three decades and then crushed my heart_ \- and on top of that, you appointed your lover, who'd probably forced himself on hundreds of women in his lifetime, a reserve deputy, never mind that knighthood bullshit. And if all of _that_ isn't offensive enough, you let your father run roughshod like some arrogant cowboy all over town, acting like he's above the law. You could replace Prince Charming with his twin brother, and the only difference would be James letting the villains drunk drive instead of the heroes, and charging slutty lingerie for his mistress to the Department account instead of diapers and Pottery Barn."

The bell on the door jangled before Emma could respond, and in walked the town's butcher who immediately gave Emma a glaring look and sneered, " _Sheriff._ "

Graham nodded at Bo Peep, "I'll see if Fluffy is ready."

More kindly, the middle-aged auburn-haired woman addressed Graham, "Thank you, Mr. Humbert. I just don't feel safe without him."

Uncertain if she should leave or not after Graham had ducked into the back, Emma loitered just long enough for the butcher and former Enchanted Forest "rent collector" to set her surly gaze back upon her. The older woman had become a staple at City Council Meetings, when open to the public, as well as Town Hall Meetings, many of which she'd been dragged out of after being disruptive.

Crossing her arms, Emma challenged. "If you have something to say, Peep, just say it."

"Why should I bother?" the woman scoffed. "You've never answered a single one of my complaints."

"Well, I'm listening now, all right?"

Peep scoffed again. "All right, _fine._ My staff. I want it back. It's mine by right. Just because it possesses magic your daddy dearest needed _years ago_ does not give your family the right to keep it, never mind for him to have taken it in the first place by breaking into my shop, laying in wait, and having your family's pet pirate physically assault me while he stood their smirking and making threats against my life and property should I fail to hand over _my family heirloom._ All of which I have on video and have repeatedly tried to submit at town meetings while trying to get signatures for a petition to reform this town's Curse-created despicable Civil Forfeiture law in order to put an end to the Sheriff Department's repeated abuses of power. Only, _someone_ keeps threatening the victims to keep their mouths shut, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is just the latest threat."

"Ah... this?" asked Emma, bewildered, while vaguely remembering something about a magic staff they used to locate Anna.

"Someone _poisoned my dog_ ," snapped Peep, "by throwing a box of chocolates into my yard. Which I didn't even bother to report, considering I've received nothing but harassment since your got your stupid 'savior' ass trapped in that ice cave. Which is why I had to get Fluffy for protection in the first place, _since I no longer have any magic_ and made the great mistake of going to your father to _request_ he return what he took. But apparently, since I'm a villain who screwed over his family, and lack the right anatomy or by-marriage and adoption connection to excuse my _horrible_ crime of adding a protection tax to the rent on your father's farm that he owed to King George, his brother's kingdom-bankrupting, homicidal father, I'm an irredeemable bitch.

"It wasn't enough that your father _literally killed_ my business partners on the advice of some foreign teenage cunt in braids he knew for a day, and declared himself the provincial hero for freeing everyone of my tax-collection tyranny. And you know how _that_ worked out? King George sent his own lackeys from the capital to raise the rent and collect the taxes, and because of my failure to keep up with our agreement, the one that meant our village didn't get plowed under for a summer castle, my sister and her husband were executed as examples of what happens when you break a deal with a tyrant. And did your shepherd dad even offer an apology for his incompetence and ignorance of the feudal economic system resulting in my niece watching her parents get murdered? No. He got to go play Prince and the great big hero didn't even have the _balls_ to come out with his real peasant identity because he didn't want to trade down from Heir to the Throne to Consort to a Deposed Princess who orchestrated a illegal coupe for deciding he wanted out of the marriage contract he signed by throwing a bankrupt kingdom into a two front war. The stupid fool got his own mother killed, apparently ruined some other kid's life, and shipped you though a magical closet to Maine under, I guess, the assumption that some random hobo would miraculously show up so you didn't die of exposure, dehydration, and starvation in a tree stump in the middle of a fucking forest. But even with all of that, I'm the evil whore for being _a tax collector_ and any property of mine your family needs, _I'd better hand over without protest_."

"I..." Emma sputtered out, "I had no idea he stole your staff and didn't return it, and I don't know about any harassment-"

"No, of course you don't," Peep scoffed. "You were too busy spreading your legs for your pirate, swooning like some debutante over a thug, which is exactly what Hook was. And when you weren't laying on your back like a good little princess, you got your kicks running your department like a reality show competition for unregulated vigilantes to take down arbitrarily-labeled villains in a world where people with guns and swords chasing humans for sport, punching them just to look tough, threatening their families and livelihoods, is what justice looks like!" she railed.

"Well, I can understand how your father thinks this is still the Enchanted Forest and it should be policed that way," continued the Butcher, "but after you took on Regina to replace Graham, I _thought_ you'd be different. That if you brought an enlightened outsider's perspective after toppling the tyrannical Queen Mayor, there wouldn't be a need for the service I provided back in that world _just to keep the people in my province from losing their homes_. But I clearly overestimated how far nurture - or lack there of - would offset your family's selfish nature, because you're just the worst kind of cliché bounty hunter either world has to offer. Instead of justice, the moment you broke the Curse, you went about destroying the all-too-brief concept this town glimpsed before your holier-than-thou parents decided to screw the peasants and forget about people being held accountable for their crimes - which includes King George who _ax murdered a man_ \- by reinstalling the same _fucking dictator_ into office so they could focus on making babies, teaching bullshit pseudoscience and revisionist history to our children, and scheming to get everyone back 'home' without actually giving anyone else a say in the matter. Just like when _they cursed us all again_ so they could find you to save their _next_ kid that they habitually neglected before the kid could even hold his head up and got busy trying to make another little brat they don't really care two shits about, like a five a year old bored with the guinea pig they got for Christmas by New Years, begging to replace it with a puppy."

At loss for any sort of defense, Emma was stood gaping like the goldfish in the bowl on the counter until the vet came out with a very large Rottweiler to end the excruciatingly scene.

"Fluffy's good to go," the man said. "He's very lucky."

"Thank you, Doctor."

Peep then gave Emma sneering look, telling her, "If you really aren't like your parents now that your brain VD has cleared up, maybe you should spend a little more time thinking about your stint in jail when _you_ couldn't make bail and overcrowding and a fucked up court system gave you eleven months as a minor for a misdemeanor _in prison_ and a little less on how good it feels to polish that badge and treat the shoplifters and petty crooks you pick up like the same worthless shit you were labeled - before getting that 'I'm better than all of you' tiara plunked on your head, _Princess_."

That said, Bo Peep shepherded the big dog out the front door, leaving Emma standing with the vet. And Graham watching from the hallway to the kennels, just to add to her humiliation.

The man in the lab coat cleared his throat awkwardly and gave Emma a nod and a, "I do hope you catch the culprit, Sheriff. Between Fluffy and that poor cat... I don't know if they're connected or if this was just some dumb kids with left over Valentine's Day candy, but they need to be held accountable."

Emma could only nod before metaphorical tale between her legs, she bid an uncomfortable retreat to her car and slumped behind the steering wheel, watching Bo Peep walking her dog back to her shop down the block and feeling well and truly scolded, like a dog that had chewed up the couch and peed on the carpet.

The truth was, while Henry, as a little kid, had thought her past occupation was cool, and Graham had seen it as qualification for a deputy job, Emma had never been proud of being a bail bonds person or bounty hunter. Oh, she'd enjoyed taking down scumbags who screwed over their spouses and kids - the reason she'd gotten into it while living in Florida - but there was a lot of unsavory stuff she hadn't anticipated, stuff she had to do that she didn't feel good about and regretted, but by then she'd had a job, built up connections, and settled into her next city and bail bonds business before discovering that just because Florida had Pre-Trail Services that kept the bail system from bankrupting the poor didn't mean the rest of the country did. Most states didn't, in fact, but they _did_ make it easy to be a bounty hunter without any qualifications and with pretty much any criminal record, which given her lack of a high school diploma and bail bonds companies having all the necessary connections to get a sealed juvenile record, had worked in her favor. Plus, a lot of her job was actually getting paid to do absolutely nothing, a nice 10-15% chunk of the bail owed, whether the person was guilty or not, which had really helped with establishing credit and getting herself a place to live and car insurance.

What it boiled down to, was that she'd helped bankrupt a lot of poor people, quite a few who pled guilty to crimes they didn't even commit, just to get out of jail so they wouldn't lose their job, their car, their house, _their kids_ while sitting in jail for weeks or even months waiting for a trail. She'd tried to offset that by only hunting down the bail jumpers who _were_ guilty, but you could never really make up for helping to destroy someone's life so _you_ could have a house, a car, a job... and bury the guilt of giving up your own kid while _you_ were sitting in jail.

Angry as Emma had been at her parents for what they did to Lily, and even though she would probably _never_ understand how they framed their self-centered motivations as in her and their family's best interest, she did understand making a choice that hurt good people so you'd hurt less. She also understood that her choices as a teenager had set her on a path that closed a great many better ones to her. Becoming a bounty hunter had been easy and portable, what with it being legal in all but four states to do pretty anything to bring in bail jumpers, including breaking-and-entering, shooting them, and dragging them back to the state where they'd skipped bail in the first place.

It was a job, a past, Emma had struggled with morally and hoped to leave behind when she became Sheriff - when Henry was still too young to think of her old job as anything but superhero type exciting. Reflecting on her time here, though, both Graham and Peep were right, Emma realized; she'd fallen all too easily back into the pattern of bail bonds and bounty hunter style "law enforcement". She had mistreated people she'd arrested, often without probable cause, just because they did something that ticked her off or she didn't like them and wanted them to stew for a bit. She'd done the sorts of things to people here that she'd posted bail for people _out there_ to spare them enduring at the hands of jailers in institutions often notorious for abuse and neglect of prisoners awaiting trial.

Emma wanted to believe it was the brain damage - and the day drinking. She didn't want to think that she could really be that big of a hypocrite after the years of already feeling crummy about the system she'd tried to do some good in. Maybe it was. But she couldn't deny that part of it wasn't also the power trip, which she knew was part of some twisted sexual high that came with Killian and her father's Wild West approach to the job that made it so easy to feel like they were two Marshals up against a gang of murderous cattle rustlers and stage coach robbers in the days when the law was really more like guidelines. It wasn't, though, and it _shouldn't_ be, not even in a town of fairy tale characters.

And if her father was really playing so loose with the never-rewritten laws Regina had made that people were getting hurt and taken advantage of, then Emma couldn't sit idly by and let it continue. She didn't want to believe it, and she probably wouldn't coming from just Bo Peep, but if Graham had somehow uncovered corruption... well, he was probably the only person she _would_ trust at his word other than Archie. Which meant that, just maybe, she had to take the Butcher seriously.

With a sigh, Emma got out of the patrol car and headed to the Butcher Shop where Peep was dumping some raw meat into a dog bowl for a salivating Fluffy. The dog eyed her a moment, until Peep set the bowl down, then took that to mean Emma wasn't a threat and began to chow down.

"What do you want?" Peep demanded.

"You said you had a video," replied Emma. "Can I see it?"

Peep narrowed her eyes. "I've made copies."

"I'm not going to destroy it. I really do want justice."

...

Uncounted hours later, Emma sat at the video surveillance terminal in the cubical outside the interrogation room with her laptop and a strong cup of coffee. After Peep's video, she'd gone around to the businesses of other known fairy tale villains that Peep claimed were also harassed by David and Killian. Often they were there to collect information or items relating to the current magical crisis, and never in the manner of a professional sheriff and reserve deputy. No, it was always with breaking in (usually with Regina's skeleton keys) and unprovoked physical violence stemming from old grudges, even if the people had committed no crimes in Storybrooke and had been hoping the "clean slate/second chance" philosophy given to Regina, Hook, and (to a lesser degree) Rumplestiltskin applied to them. Both magical items and just any old thing that her father and late husband wanted were fair game for the pickings, including cash right out of registers.

When Emma added in old dash-cam videos, it just got worse with illegal traffic stops. More than seventy-five percent of her father's police reports contradicted or left out information on the videos that he'd downloaded to his computer after shift and _thought_ he'd erased, if not for her disk recovery tool and the shitty old computers that were never upgraded until Neal had stopped in... which probably explained how Graham got word of the corruption. Because, of course, it got worse.

When David wasn't stopping fairy tale villains for fake tail light outages and turn signal violations to search their trunks and glove compartments for anything of interest, he was open-containers-of-alcohol joyriding with Killian or letting Mary Margaret use the siren while laughing over "scarring the crap" out of the cars they were behind. And, of course, if he ever pulled over any of his friends - the drunk and sleep driving Dwarfs in particular - he never did a sobriety test, and usually just asked if they were going to show up to 'Boys Night' at the Library.

Where, apparently, David had racked up a tremendous amount of gambling debt.

A review of the Department's budget and expense reports revealed that David had been giving himself raises and bonuses, since Killian's death collecting his part-time salary, and charging non-work expenses to the Office of the Sheriff, tacking on everything from leather jackets to diapers whenever they needed more office supplies or ammunition. The level of unrestrained corruption and thuggery that her father had been employing for _years_ was astonishing. Graham had been right: James couldn't have done it better, and it was clearly the fact that David was _Prince Charming_ , married to Snow White, the father of The Savior, and in a position of respect and authority amongst the people he treated well (overly well, in some cases), that no one had taken a stand to speak out about the injustice. Well, that and having a known murder/rapist psychopath who wasn't above handing over kids to a known child abuser/killer as his muscle.

Emma felt particularly ill over the video currently paused on the screen. It was one of those motion-activated nature cameras that Storybrooke's one-man Park Service had installed in the wildlife persevere to monitor various animals that passed by. On the video from last fall, Graham was seen getting out of a car only to be accosted by David first, up in his face, clearly trying to look intimidating while brandishing his badge, and then Killian had joined him, punched Graham the stomach, and kneed him in the groin for good measure. Considering the date stamp, and that just the day before Emma had offered Graham a position back in the department, the message delivered was pretty clear, even without audio: David didn't want any competition on the job and Killian didn't want a former suitor getting any ideas.

"I'm surrounded by chauvinist pigs," Emma sighed, a headache throbbing at her temples.

Finally shutting off the monitor and gathering her laptop, Emma headed for her office -

Where she found her father sitting at _her_ desk, muddy boots up, eating the bear claw she'd been saving for later.

That the last straw.

"Hey!" David began in a chipper voice, "were you here the whole time? I thought you were on foot patrol again. Listen, do you think you could watch your brother and sister tonight so I could take your mother on a stakeout, if you know what I-"

0"You're fired."

She hadn't meant it to quite come out like that, but she was about to burst and throw some shit with magic.

"I... what?" David asked, bewildered.

"Hand over your badge and your gun," Emma stated evenly, "that you were never rightfully given in the first place. I joined this department to clean it up. You're supposed to be a hero. And instead I find out you're letting your friends get away with drunk driving, used Hook to beat up people so you could take anything you couldn't steal during traffic stops, and for everyone else you needed, you used Department funds. This is not your personal expense account for Timberland, Baby Gap, and paying off your cockfighting gambling debts!"

"I... Emma... it's not like that," David sputtered, standing, and looking a bit nervous.

"So, you're going to tell me that margarita machine in the break room was really a _gift_ from Don Juan, and not from the money you took out of his glove compartment that you wrote up in a report he was taking to buy drugs, even though he told you _on tape_ that it was to buy a car, _and_ he had the online receipt to verify that before you took his phone and deleted it? And then you just _happened_ to show up the next day with the very margarita machine Mom said you were not going to spend diaper money on?"

"I... um... you see, there's a very good explanation, Emma-"

"That we have a family history of alcoholism that requires coffee break margaritas?" Emma snapped. "Don't bullshit me, _David_. I've seen the business security tapes. I recovered all the dash cam videos you thought you deleted. _And_ the personal videos you didn't of attending those gambling parties. And _don't even try to pretend_ it was your twin brother, because they are date stamped! I know all of the personal property you've taken, the evidence you've planted, and the people you had Hook physically assault from Peep to Graham! You are _Prince Charming_ and that's how you want to run things? Well, I may have lost sight of my job here thanks to heaping loads of family bullshit and brain-eating venereal diseases, but unless you've bribed Whale to falsify your last physical, you don't have an excuse for being a dirtier day drinking cop than _Nottingham_. I don't know if all of that shit was your idea, or if Hook blackmailed you with the massive gambling debt you've clearly been hiding from my mother, but you're not going to keep hiding it by siphoning money from this department. _You are done here_."

"Emma-"

" _Don't make me melt your margarita machine, David!_ " she threatened, the lights flickering as she did so.

Looking mildly alarmed for the safety of his midday boozed-up slushy fix, Charming set his badge and gun on the desk and then hurried out, stopping only to grab his illicitly purchased leather jacket and Ray-Bans on the way out. As the lights ceased fizzling, Emma slumped into her chair, wondering what hellish backlash she had just brought upon herself by firing her own father. When George fired him as prince, _he started a war_. And that was all over a position he didn't even like... apart from the fancy weapons, the fancy clothes, the fancy carriages, and that everyone called him "Your Highness".

Yeah, she'd just emasculated Prince Charming and took away all his toys.

Emma was in some _deep_ shit.

* * *

AN: Poor kitty and Fluffy. Who would do such a thing? I don't know; sadly, the pets were just a plot device, which is troubling, really, because, dude, someone is torturing cats and poisoning dogs in Storybrooke and I'll probably never address it again! If you're wondering why a Rottweiler, it's just the first big dog that came to mind, and then I Googled how to spell it, and wouldn't you know it, but Rottweilers were known as "Rottweil butchers' dogs" because they were used to herd livestock and pull carts laden with butchered meat and other products to market; now _that_ is a cool coincidence! On the character front, I almost put Cora in this chapter to confront Emma, but a review inquiring about Peep made me decide to give all the good lines to her, instead. Ashley's kid bothers me immensely. Since the _Once Upon A Time in Wonderland_ pilot had Ashley closing up Granny's right before Will broke in, I'm going with that she returned after the storm, found the mysterious rabbit hole and some Wonderland mushrooms scattered on the floor, which she took home and Alexandra decided to teeth on, because Ella is a terribly inattentive mother; as a result, Alex's growth was retarded and she changed gender. The law  & order stuff was inspired by _Last Week Tonight with John Oliver_ 's pieces on Civil Forfeiture watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks and Bail watch?v=IS5mwymTIJU. Yes, Emma, you really should be ashamed of the system you perpetuated, just because it requires zero qualifications and let's you beat up the occasional actual douchebag. Who will think of the peasants in The Land Without Magic? Not Emma Swan. In between booting the cars of deadbeat dads, she was helping poor people lose their livelihoods to finance her high-rise apartments.

Next up: What do you do after firing your dad while guilt-tripping over your own lawless hypocrisy? Make like Rumplestiltskin and run for it, that's what!


	30. Parental Warning

**CHAPTER THIRTY: PARENTAL WARNING**

(In which Emma and Neal talk, and the best course of action is the path of lease resistance in avoiding parental temper tantrums.)

Neal had just gotten out of the shower and pulled on a pair of track pants when there was a loud banging on the door. The last person he expected was Emma and looking desperate and uncertain as she exclaimed, "We should take a roadtrip."

"Um... what?"

"A roadtrip. A vacation. With Henry. It was his idea. It's the last day of school. I'm already packed. If we leave in a couple of hours, we can-"

"Avoid whatever it is you obviously don't want to deal with?" Neal prompted.

Emma scowled and then sighed. "Okay, so I might have fired my dad."

Now _that_ was a surprise. Neal's brows nearly hit his hairline. "You _fired_ your dad?"

"That's what I said! He's a _horrible_ cop, Neal! He's been embezzling money from the Department to pay off massive gambling debts and my mother's Toys R Us bill and let Leroy out of dozens of DUI's that could have killed people, never mind Walter who should have had his license revoked years ago with the number of times he got pulled over on night patrol for sleeping behind the wheel! And all this time I thought Graham didn't want to work for the department again because it was just his curse-assigned job, but my father _threatened_ him, because he didn't want any male competition!"

"Well, yeah..."

"You _knew_?"

Neal shrugged. "Kinda consider Graham a friend. We bonded over being formerly dead ex-lovers of yours that you let your new friends and family treat like crap."

Wincing, Emma dared to ask, "Did Killian... did he ever-"

"Punch me in the face?" Neal retorted. "Naw. He knew it hurt more to just go into detail about the many ways in which you liked to be jabbed with his sword while screaming his name and digging your nails into my mother's name. You know, that and teaching Henry how to sail and about the stars, all the stuff I actually did and now it's too late to do, stuff that he did intentionally just to take it away from me posthumously because so much of it is otherwise completely irrelevant, but he just liked knowing he _won_ that too."

Emma shrunk back, guilty. "I didn't know. Henry... he knows you wanted to teach him that stuff, and that's what matters, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, but it doesn't make it not hurt, Emma," he responded, "any more than you having fake memories of keeping Henry makes it not hurt that you gave him up and Regina did all of that. It was supposed to be me, but it was someone else, somehow who didn't value him, who was just using him to get his happy ending and reading off my script to do it."

Emma opened her mouth, the shut it again. Her phone chimed before she could come up with a response and she found a text from her mother, all caps, a lot of exclamation points, and a flurry of angry emoticons... followed by her phone informing her of a voice mail (she'd had her mother's phone numbers go straight to voice mail for quite some time, since she was constantly calling about stupid things) which Emma reluctantly played.

"EMMA EVA SWAN, YOU DID NOT JUST FIRE YOUR FATHER AFTER ACCUSING HIM OF CORRUPTION AND THUGGERY! YOU GIVE HIM BACK HIS BADGE AND GUN THIS MINUTE! I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR MOODY BEHAVIOR! YOU CAN'T GO MAKING BASELESS ACCUSATIONS AND TREATING YOUR FATHER LIKE A CRIMINAL JUST BECAUSE YOUR BOYFRIEND DUMPED YOU! SO YOU GET YOUR BUTT BACK TO THE STATION RIGHT NOW, MISSY, BEFORE I-"

The message was cut off... and then her phone showed another voice mail.

"GO TO REGINA AND HAVE HER TRACK YOU DOWN AND POOF YOU-"

Neal took the phone out of her hand and shut it off. "So... roadtrip, huh?"

"You don't have to on my account."

He shrugged. "Hey, we might be taking a break from romance, but that doesn't mean I'm adverse to a roadtrip. We _are_ still a family, presently the saner half of it, apparently, and Henry did ask me to take him to a DMV appointment in Bangor tomorrow. Said you never got a New York license, so yours was expired, and he needs someone with a current license and registration to take the driving test."

"Manipulative little jerk," sighed Emma, and Neal chuckled.

"Yeah, but he's our manipulative little jerk. And, hey, I'm sure we can manage a couple of hours together."

"Right," Emma agreed. "I mean, after all the Dark One-related stuff, the DMV should be like a vacation."

Neal laughed at that. "Let me just throw some things in a bag," he said, heading toward the bedroom. "How long of a roadtrip are we planning here?"

"Well, considering how pissed my mother is at me, consider how pissed she's going to be when she figures out that my father really has been dicking around and owes a hundred grand to a bunch of pirates, thieves, _and_ King Midas..."

"So... a week?"

"At least. I'd just assume miss the inevitable post-fighting incessant make-up canoodling stage," groused Emma. "Knowing my parents, they'll spend a few minutes shouting at each other, my mother will ignore my father for a day or two, and then he'll will come up some incredibly sappy two minute speech plagiarized from a rom-com - or nearly get himself killed - and she'll forget he screwed up and lied and jump him like a rabbit in heat. So they'll act like a couple of dumb, horny teenagers for at least a week. Well, dumber and hornier than usual. And there's no way I'm getting stuck baby-sitting while they try to make me _another_ bratty sibling."

"Not digging the big sister thing, huh?" Neal asked, as though that hadn't already been obvious.

"If I actually felt like a big sister instead of just some person with an illogical hereditary connection to parents who never actually parented me and barely parent their next batch of kids," sighed Emma, revealing perhaps more than she meant to with that statement. Thankfully, the clock tower chimed, almost deafening in the apartment, after which she said, "I should get Henry. My mother should be in a teacher's meeting until three-thirty, so that's just enough time to get him and pack."

With a nod, Neal followed her to the door where it occurred, "Hey, if you're Sheriff and you fired your dad, then who's in charge while you're gone?"

Emma grimaced. "Let's just say I may have accidentally sort of adopted five cats."

* * *

AN: The DMV always makes me think of an _Animaniacs_ episode in which the entrance to Hell was in a DMV parking lot. I miss that show. I am a _Loony Toons_ person. Disney people can suck it! (Just kidding.)

Next up: Let the National Lampooning begin!


	31. Operation Tallahassee

**CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: OPERATION TALLAHASSEE AND OTHER DISASTROUS IDEAS FROM THE MIND OF HENRY MILLS**

(In which there's too much exposition instead of real-time scenes because The Author was feeling lazy A&E style.)

If Henry Mills had a nickname, it would probably be "King of Spectacularly Doomed Operations". The sad fact was, every one of his operations had some horrible result. _Operation Cobra_ led to being poisoned, the arrival of magic, his mother and grandmother being sucked into another realm, and from that the arrival of Cora and Hook. _Operation Praying Mantis_ led to being kidnapped and his father being shot, which led to his grandfather's death and resurrection, and from that his father's death and Zelena casting her time spell. _Operation Mongoose_ led to the unleashing of a psychotic scribe who trapped his family in a book and rewrote history so that he could get rich off the misfortunes of others, and that subsequently caused his mom to become the Dark One.

Considering the spectacular fail of _Operation Jackass_ , Henry really should have quit while he was behind, but it just seemed to be in his "Charming" nature to forget his proven incompetence where planning was concerned and go by the motto "If at first you don't succeed, try try again." Whoever came up with that saying probably did not have family like Henry's, because anyone who knew them for very long would conclude that after one failure at something, they really ought to just stay home and not touch anything.

Oh, the trip had _started out_ well enough. It had almost felt like they were a real _normal_ family getting dinner at a pizza place and watching an old kung fu movie at the motel in Bangor. They'd quizzed each other on the questions and did some mock kung-fu fighting that would have left Mulan appalled, probably. But it had been fun! And, sure, Henry's parents had both been a little miffed to find out that he'd gone and rented a beach house in Florida for a couple of weeks _and_ got tickets to Disney World, but he'd also used Grandpa Charming's credit card, so angry as his mom was at her dad, she'd decided it was a forgivable theft... before he got a lecture on taking other people's credit cards.

Things had been looking up.

Until they got to the DMV in the morning.

Perhaps, if Henry had lived _for real_ in some big city other than New York where everyone took taxis and the subway, he would have understood that if the Dark One could be personified by a location, that location would be the Department of Motor Vehicles.

After standing in lines, filling out forms, taking tests, filling out more forms, having horribly unflattering pictures taken, sitting around for hours past their appointment times in the most uncomfortable chairs known to man, using a bathroom that smelled worse than an airplane lavatory, listening to elevator Muzak incessantly interrupted by an automated voice calling out numbers in a stilted fashion, and being generally glowered at and mistreated by employees that ranged from apathetic to snide and patronizing, even Henry had lost much of his enthusiasm for taking his behind-the-wheel test at a _real_ DMV where he'd be fairly graded instead of just passed because everyone was afraid of his family's "heroic" retribution.

Had Henry lived _for real_ in some big city other than New York, he might also have understood that DMV employees were not known for being fair. If they weren't taking bribes from customers, they were failing them so they'd have to come back and pay the extra fee, or letting them sit around for hours before deciding to inform them that, _oops_ , the computers had been down since they'd opened, so, no, it wouldn't be possible to process that stuff that the person at the front desk told them to take a number to come to their window to get done, even though that person had obviously known the computers were down so that wouldn't be possible, but they had nowhere else to be while waiting to see if the computers came back online, so why should they care if anyone else might?

By the time Henry's name was called for the road test, his parents had both looked ready to punch someone.

Thankfully, he hadn't gotten the tester who looked ready to punch someone, but rather the slacker who spent the entire ten minutes texting on his phone and probably wouldn't have been able to recall what color Henry's hair was after scribbling his approval on the form.

Which had been great for Henry. Not so much for his mom, though, as Emma had gotten the angry-looking guy who failed her two minutes into the test for blowing a stop sign - which Neal had made the mistake of finding completely hilarious.

Things had snowballed from there.

Emma had brought up giving Hook driving lessons complete with euphemisms about stick shifts and pistons and the obvious insinuation that she'd done more with Hook in the little yellow Volkswagen than just teach the pirate how to drive.

Neal had accused her of letting the pirate blow a load over everything of theirs.

So, it probably hadn't been a good idea for Henry to try and diffuse things with music.

In his defense, his mom had never told him that "Charley's Girl" was their song. He'd also had no idea that his dad had seen Emma and Killian's wedding reception video on her computer at work.

All he'd ever known was that Emma'd had an old Lou Reed tape in the glovebox that they'd played on the way to New York after their "camping trip" following the "apartment fire". She'd promised to take him to Coney Island... though they never did make it. Because, before that planned summer trip, Killian Jones had shown up and, well, gone about co-opting everything that was theirs. Although, to be fair, it was probably Henry's fault for ignorantly playing the tape on the way to Storybrooke to break the weird tension... which had led to a different sort of tension after "Feeling Crazy" when Killian had begun shamelessly using the lyrics to flirt with Emma about booze and royalty. In retrospect, Henry now understood why, when he'd started on about her turning him in to the cops in Central Park meaning the music gods were clearly trying to tell her something, Emma had glared and put on sports talk radio instead. But she'd never clued _him_ (and Henry supposed not Hook either) in on the importance of the song, and so, naturally, the pirate had decided after the "Prince Charles" thing that "Charley's Girl" was the prefect song to play for their first dance as a married couple, apparently encouraged by Mary Margaret who reached the same myopic conclusion, as people in Storybrooke, to Henry's observation, had some annoying delusion that anyone's life and interest prior to finding their spouse had to immediately be assigned some "fated true love" meaning.

In response to Emma's attempted defense of it being "just a song", Neal had thrown _Coney Island Baby_ out the window into the ditch at the side of the highway.

Emma had called him a child.

And if something was bad, it could _always_ get worse.

They'd driven straight through the night and the following day, Neal and Henry taking shifts, secure in the knowledge that, at least, there would be a destination with clean beds, air-conditioning, and a roof over their heads.

How stupid of them, really.

As Neal pulled up to the front of the address on Tallahassee Street in the tiny seaside town of Carrabelle, Henry blinked in confusion at the dumpy bungalow with a weedy yard and rotted front porch that looked nothing like the picture on Craigslist.

"Maybe it's better on the inside," he tried to be hopeful.

It wasn't.

There were only two useable beds, because the roll-a-way in the loft was just the frame without a matters. The water coming out of the tap was rusty. And rain water from the badly leaking roof had shorted out the window-mounted air conditioner.

"I'll take the couch," Neal offered with a sigh, after Emma was already carrying her suitcase into the back bedroom.

Henry thought he should be the one enduring the lumpy sofa, but instead he just nodded and took the other bedroom. It was no real great prize with the paint-glued-shut window, mildew pillow, and one very loud cricket that after a half an hour he gave up trying to catch, resigned to sweating through his pajamas while listening to the mournful solitary chirp and the muffled sound of his mom crying through the stagnant air vent.

* * *

AN: Wow, so that was super depressing!

Next up: The Unhappiest Place on Earth. Kind of.


	32. The Unhappiest Place On Earth

**CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: THE UNHAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH  
**

(In which the promise of vacation family bonding fun is cut short by someone being stupid and magic bullshit, because family bonding fun is not drama or action and really hard to write, yo!)

Murphy's Law states: "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

Emma had to wonder if she had any ancestors named "Murphy" as they drove back to Carrabelle from Orlando where the three days at Disney World and a suit at the Swan Hotel that she'd been dreading on the drive from Maine was now an aborted reprieve from solitary confinement with a depressed teenager and a brooding grown man in the beach house from Hell.

It had to be their particular brand of fucking "luck" that instead of spending the morning at The Happiest Place on Earth, they were awoken from their hotel beds with the power out and told they had to pack up their things and leave, because a major failure in the subterranean water pump system was turning Disney World back into its original name: The Swampiest Place on Earth, complete with a sinkhole that had swallowed up Storybook Land during the night, meaning the park and the entire resort complex on the former swampland had to be evacuated until the water could be pumped out and geologists had determined nothing else was going to fall into a limestone cavern, which could take weeks.

Emma probably shouldn't have punched Goofy in the parking lot, but he was well-padded, and the security had tried to be understanding that people were seriously pissed off. So, here they were, back in Carrabelle where the only tourist attraction was the phone booth and adjacent bench that served as a police station.

Needing air, Emma left Henry to a rusty shower and Neal to whatever.

What a fucking disaster this had turned out to be!

Damn it, this vacation was supposed to be about reconnecting, and if all Neal was going to do was accuse her of intentionally re-gifting everything that mattered to them out of spite, then what chance did they really have, anyway?

Emma kicked at a pile of sea weed and sighed.

The vacation was a disaster and Neal was being a jerk, but mostly, she was furious with herself.

She'd heard it said that _sometimes, people never get what they deserve because they're too busy holding on to things they're supposed to let go of_.

She'd held onto a lot of things. Before leaving Tallahassee, she'd almost thrown Neal's keychain into the surf, but hadn't been able to do it. Ultimately, she was glad, but that inaction signified a weakness that she'd always fought against, the evidence of scars left over from her orphan childhood that made her cling to things that most people, people who weren't so fucked up and had families and a home, would cast off to be free of the pain. But when you didn't have love growing up, pain could easily fill that void, and she'd gotten used to it, that hurt, and all of the little things that signified it, until she became a collector of painful things and pieced them together into an armor that shielded her from love. And she'd worn that armor for so long that when the pieces finally started to come off, she hadn't even known how to identify _real_ love. Somehow she hadn't realized that the two were so very similar, that sometimes love hurt as much as the loneliness.

Perhaps, she should have listened to more country music instead of sea chantey, Emma thought as she pulled the brass-plated circlet necklace from her pocket.

Killian was the first person since she got it to equate it with a stylized ship's wheel - with the claim that her wearing it was foreshadowing of their destined romance. She'd smiled at his romantic bullshit and let him have his belief, even though she refused to be boxed in by some fated romance idea, particularly when it came at the expense of so many people's happiness, and honestly hadn't given it a thought since then until Neal expressed obvious ambivalence about the charm.

She'd gotten it in Florida, not very far from here, from the first bail jumper she'd nabbed. When she'd tried to return it to the deadbeat's ex-wife, the woman hadn't wanted a reminder of the guy who lied and cheated. So Emma had kept it, a reminder of another woman who'd been wronged, a reminder to never be like that woman, stuck in some abusive, codependent nightmare with a violent jerk... because she didn't have the family or friends to step in, to help her get away and get her shit together, help her figure out the difference between love and mutual self-destruction.

The irony wasn't lost on her. She _had_ found family and made friends, but not a single one of them had said anything. Well, maybe Regina had in the beginning before her attention was taken by Robin, but otherwise, people had just brushed it off when he got alarmingly jealous or was just _always there_ like he didn't trust her to be an independent person; making suggestions and flattering comments, but always _standing in the way_ or grabbing her by the arm or twisting her personal business into something about him, about his needs or making him her savior from her own inner demon.

Emma sighed.

Her therapy sessions with Archie had been both revelatory and embarrassing. That she had allowed herself to get involved in such a toxic relationship with a man that was so sexist and controlling and manipulative was a bigger blow than Emma wanted to let on after trying to live her life railing against those who tried to take away her agency, who treated her like a thing rather than a person. Maybe the difference was that most of those people had treated her like a meal ticket and Hook had treated her like a prize, and it was flattering.

Now... now it was just humiliating.

Even for all of the maybe subconsciously self-loathing reasons she'd let herself be with someone like that, it still debasing herself. And _to have sent a message to her son,_ that it was okay to be with a jerk (or be a jerk), to sacrifice the better parts of your nature to excuse away the worst parts was just... as crappy a form of parenting as anything her own had done.

Her relationship with Killian was _so_ disgustingly cliché, so demeaning and degrading that Emma hated herself for instigating it, for sticking with it, for convincing herself that she was in love with him and he with her. From the very beginning they were a mess. _She found him under people he helped murder_. What she tried to tell herself later was flirting during that swordfight, what he boasted as such a romantic line - _and cited it in his marriage vows_ \- was an attempt to dominate her plain and simple, to instill fear while boasting about his sexual prowess by pinning her down and sneering that when he "jabbed" her with his "sword" _she would feel it_. Their relationship from start to finish was about him gaining power over her. With every one of their interactions, he'd found ways to emotionally manipulate her during his relentless pursuit, no matter how much she'd conveyed disinterest. He'd manipulated her feelings, taken advantage of her vulnerability, gotten her to make out with him as rewards for good behavior, given him her heart every time he grabbed her, kept her from walking away until he'd either belittled her feelings as fear of opening up to him or reminded her that everything in her world boiled to him and his love for her, his duty to protect her and save her, because she couldn't take care of herself on her own.

For trying to find a modern fairy tale happy ending, she'd ended up with the same kind of misogynist bullshit as the stories she'd hated as a child, trapped in a weirdly adolescent relationship that consisted of a lot of passion and not much else. She'd reduced herself to the clueless, superficial teenage girl she _never_ was while branding her bad boy lover a hero, even though _nothing_ about him had really changed. By virtue of his "love" she'd just excused his horrible actions as what pirates did... when she wasn't actually _encouraging_ it or falling into stupid fairy tale adventures and _enjoying it_.

Neal wasn't wrong about that. The trip to the past, Isaac's fanfiction... she'd _enjoyed_ the thrill of it, getting to dress up, being a bar wench or a pirate, or a princess, getting a taste, a thrill, of what the life might have been like if she'd lived it. But there was a difference between Cosplay and _real life_... a difference that she'd ignored. It was fun for a day or two, because it _wasn't real_ , but making that screwed up view of right and wrong, romantic and creepy, the rules by which she lived and chose relationships? That was the definition of self-destructive behavior. It was a world, a life, in which right and wrong had no meaning anymore, just 'caught' and 'not caught'.

But it was hard to admit that she was _that_ fucked up.

 _That she'd been attracted to an obvious murderer and admitted rapist._

Because dead bodies didn't lie and he had boasted that getting women drunk for sex was his m.o. After having _threatened_ to rape her, she should have seen that red flag. After all the times he repeatedly invaded her personal space, touched her against her will, manipulated her into sexual favors, she should have looked at him and saw the worst sort of creep. But even before the pixie dust, she had to admit, some part of her _was_ attracted to him. Just... not the good part of her.

Watching the sun rise, Emma remembered telling Ashley Boyd that there were no fairy godmothers in this world. She'd learned otherwise... only to learn eventually that fairy godmothers were basically breaking bad with fairy dust and keeping everyone addicted to the idea that they needed magic to get their happy endings - magic that took away free will, that made it so that no matter how strong your resolve to change fate, you were going to be destiny's bitch until they day you died... and were brought back... and died again. It was power she had, that she was given at the expense of another, that she loved because it gave her control in a life that was so otherwise _out of control_ and hated because it was generally the reason her life was an unending cycle of fiascoes. It was power that had corrupted her, no matter how good she'd wanted to be for Henry.

It was power she had even outside of Storybrooke, and it tingled in her hand as she drew on it - and then threw the old necklace as far as it would go out into the surf where it glinted in the orange glow of the sunrise before vanishing in the deep blue water.

Around her neck, the swan pendant felt heavy.

 _"It was supposed to represent our life together."_

Tallahassee had never felt so far away.

With a sigh, Emma headed back up the beach house.

Neal was pouring cereal into a bowl when she entered and with a glance in her direction, he informed, "I don't think any of us want to stay here another night. I called the rental office. We can drop the keys off and then, I don't know, get a hotel room in the city, at least for the night, then maybe just head back before things get worse, like an early start to hurricane season or something."

"Sounds like a plan. I'll drive," Emma stated as she put water in the microwave for some sub-par instant hot chocolate.

"Emma-"

"It's through a deserted forest, Neal," she cut him off. "This town has a phone booth for a police station and a sheriff's department that's too busy wrangling alligators and trailer trash meth heads to randomly stop out of state cars. _I'm driving_."

"Fine," he grunted. "But if you end up in jail, you can't pin it on me."

"Just like old times right," she scoffed.

Neal threw her a look. "Why the hell are you so angry with me?"

"Who wouldn't be angry? You ate all of my cereal and faked your death for three years!" she shot back. "And, you know, you left me pregnant and got me arrested because a puppet told you too!"

"I didn't _fake_ my death. You didn't put your name on the damned cereal. And how many times do I have to apologize for that!?"

"I don't know, Neal. There's no set number on forgiveness for sending your _pregnant girlfriend to prison_."

"August sent you to prison," Neal stated. "The guy you considered a friend, because all your friends screwed you over, so by that definition and my being solely responsible for what happened to you and Henry, I should be your _best friend._ Here I thought you'd forgiven me, but I guess we're back to regretting things said in the heat of mortal peril," he snapped, turning to wash his bowl out - and knocking over her bottle of cinnamon in the process.

The glass bottle tumbled from the counter and hit the tile floor, shattering and spilling its contents.

Emma growled. "You did that on purpose!"

Neal scoffed. "Seriously? You have got to be kidding me. I am not that petty."

"Yeah? Because I seem to remember you making some rather petty remarks when you were rubbing Tamara in my face. Not to mention fighting over a fucking lighter with Killian."

"Oh, I'm sorry that I was offended you fucked my stepfather while our son was kidnapped by my evil grandfather."

"I told you, all we did was kiss!"

"Yeah, one of those super romantic blackmail kisses you apparently love so much."

Emma growled. "It was pixie dust! Why are you are being such a child! I said I was sorry!"

"There's no set number on forgiveness for marrying my stepfather."

Glaring, Emma grabbed the broom. "You know, _Killian_ would have offered to clean this up _and_ go into town and get a new bottle."

Neal scoffed, "Yeah, well, _Killian_ did anything to keep you happy and _putting out_ whether you deserved it or not. Excuse me for believing relationships aren't about bullshitting each other's self esteem to keep the sex coming!"

"Yeah, well, you've made it perfectly clear you don't want to have sex with me, anyway, Neal."

Neal threw his hands up in the air. "Excuse me for having issues with being one degree of separation from screwing my own mother and knowing it's thanks to the guy who's the king of passion by which you measure all lovers!"

"Is that what you think?" Emma scoffed. "That I'm going to compare your penis size?"

"I think no matter how hard I try, I'm gonna be found wanting. I mean, you told Archie no one would ever come close to Killian. So obviously I didn't measure up on the passion scale the first time around."

Emma gaped and sputtered. For the first time she understood Regina's wrath when Archie spilled her private session. "Leaving aside that I'm going to throttle Archie, _we were kids_! We didn't even know what passion was, and even if we did, we were living out of a car. And I wasn't _lamenting_ that I'd never have passion like that again. I was angry that I let having that much passion cloud my judgment. So if I had to choose between an excess of passion to cover up all the crap and insecurities and someone I felt comfortable with-"

"So, I'm comfortable?" he dubiously returned.

"What's _wrong_ with comfortable? I could be myself with you. I never had to be someone else, what you or anyone else expected me to be."

"And yet you chose him," Neal countered.

"Because I didn't like being reminded that I felt that comfortable around you, after you hurt me," Emma tried to explain.

"So, you were comfortable with me then, but I became a bad memory," Neal sighed, then prompted. "You ever think it's that maybe, deep down, you can't stand the thought that fate or destiny or whatever brought us together just to make Henry, just to get you here, and that's all we are, some magical contrivance?"

Grimacing, Emma conceded, "Maybe... maybe I did wonder that once, but I know now that there are people you are _meant_ to be with and people you just choose. We were meant to be together, Neal. Killian, I chose, for all the wrong reasons, because I lost you when I was too afraid to love you again, and I didn't know how to find Tallahassee without you. Maybe the Curse caused us to meet and feel a connection, but I don't believe that magic can make people fall in love, can make them _choose_ to be together."

Shaking her head, Emma insisted, "My feelings, your feelings, those weren't a 'contrivance'. Henry wasn't the only good thing that came out of us being together. You were my first love, we shared a life, a home together. You were so many things to me that made me who I am, that I will always be grateful for. Don't devalue that."

"But you did," Neal countered, not trying to attack her, but he couldn't ignore it.

Emma sighed, tired of this argument going in circles. "I'd lost you three times, Neal. I didn't... I couldn't hope..."

"Yeah, you needed me to be dead," he uttered. "Because I hurt you and you didn't want to deal with the pain. Well, you hurt me, Emma, and I told you, I'm trying to get past that. I'm trying to see your point of view. I know there were some extenuating circumstances and you're not entirely at fault, but sometimes... sometimes I'm not sure that I'm really the one you want to be with."

"Why? Because you're not a knight in shining armor?" Emma countered. "How am I supposed to convince you that I don't care about that? I can't go back in time and _not_ choose him, even though I _wish_ that I could. I wish I could save you in the forest that day or find a way when I was back in the past, but I didn't. I can't. I know I screwed up. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I keep hurting you. But I'm trying to make this work. I'm choosing _you_ for the _right_ reasons. What more do you want from me?"

"Maybe, for once, I want to actually matter," Neal stated, "instead of just being a plot device in someone else's story."

"Neal, you're not-"

"Yeah, I am," he cut her off. "My father's story, yours, the Darlings, even _Killian's_ , I was just a plot device. It wasn't ever _my_ story. I don't get one. I try to help my father, I fall down a portal. Try to help Wendy, I get whisked off to Neverland and I wasn't even _helping_ her. I get rescued by my asshole step-dad and he gets to use me as leverage to make supply and whore runs, and after I'm dead I get cast in some bullshit reinterpretations of our halcyon days together so he can win your heart and make my own kid believe that I idolized him for the _wonderful_ things he taught me."

With a snort, Neal continued, 'I find someone I want to spend my life with after centuries alone in a fucking cave only to be told _I'm good not enough_ , I'm just a bit player in _your_ story. We finally find each other again, I find out I've got a son, so I get shot, I try to save him, I get locked in a cage, and I can't even get a cup of coffee with you. You didn't even want to fucking _hug_ me, Emma, when you could be flirting with that jackass in our last moments together as a family, and maybe you snorted some pixie dust, then, but when I came back? I couldn't even see my kid one last time before it was off to the next round of punishment for the horrible crime of wanting a family. I _finally_ found my family, Emma, I had a chance to make things right and you told me that you loved me, that you needed me, so I fought like hell to get back to you - only to find out that love couldn't compete with a man you barely knew, who'd been trying to murder your entire family until just a few days before, the same man _my mother chose over me_. And then you either threw away or handed him everything that represented us like you were trying to erase me from existence, like none of it mattered, like I was just a footnote in your life. He got to be your knight in shining armor while I got a cheap-ass headstone with a shitty epitaph that you never visited and some postpartum bullshit name-saking after centuries of literary hacks who capitalized on our world's misfortunes _didn't even mention me_ , so why should I believe this'll be any different? When no one _ever_ chooses me, why I should I actually believe that you're choosing me isn't just another eventual disappointment?"

Emma fought tears while wondering how she'd missed that. Her sessions with Archie really should have clued her in that there was usually a deeper meaning to the bullshit that people argued about. She knew things with his father had messed him up, that much was clear back in Portland, but Neal had never talked about it then, and it had just never occurred to her to ask about it once she knew the truth. Of course, there hadn't been time until recently, but considering her own parental issues, maybe she should have gotten a clue that it wasn't just about a pirate.

" _Of course_ you're good enough, Neal!" Emma exclaimed.

"Then what the hell, Emma? If it wasn't about him, if it wasn't about me-"

"BECAUSE I WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH!"

There was silence after the words came out and Emma shrunk back, tears falling in fat droplets while Neal stared, mouth slightly open in confusion. She'd take his revelation and raise him one.

Emma swallowed and repeated, her voice meek, "I wasn't good enough for you. I wasn't good enough for someone better than him. I didn't visit your grave, because I was ashamed that you died for something I couldn't ever live up to, so I could find something I didn't even know I _couldn't_ with out you, and because I didn't know, because I screwed up," she said, gripping the pendant at her throat, "you didn't get Tallahassee. I _killed you_ with my magic. The magic you hate."

Neal blinked several times, his mind trying to make sense of her words, before responding, "Hey, no, Emma, I don't hate magic. I ended up using it because I was scared of losing you and Henry- and yeah, it screwed me over, but I _still_ don't hate it. Was I thrilled to find out you have magic? No, but that's only because I'd seen how dangerous it is, watched my Papa, a good man, changed by it, and I didn't want the same thing to happen to you."

" _But it did_. And now I _am_ changed," she argued, shaking her head. "And that was _my_ choice. Every wrong choice I've made was my own, starting in the woods that day. I wanted to be the hero, the Savior that everyone expected, but I was afraid of it. Like I was afraid of loving you. After you died, I tried to embrace it, to accept that it was part of me, so I wouldn't screw up again when I had to use it, but I _kept_ screwing up. I told you father in the past that you needed to die a hero, that changing things would just fuck it up more - but how could it be more screwed up than Henry not having his dad? Than you not getting your happy ending after centuries of suffering? Then me becoming the fucking _Dark One_ so Henry had to go through the same thing that you did? You died so I could become the thing you feared the most, that you spent centuries running and hiding from? And I left you rotting in that vault. I didn't even know. I can't even tell what true love is in my own heart. What does that say about me? What kind of Savior, what kind of person is that fucked up?"

Neal took a step toward her, his shoes crunching on the glass. "Emma, you're not 'fucked up'. You're a good person-"

" _I'm not._ " She sniffed and shook her head. "Killian thought I was. _That's_ why I wanted to be with him, okay?" she told him harshly. "He thought I was perfect. But nobody's perfect. Love makes them that way. And I needed... I needed someone who saw me that way, that I would never disappoint. Because _I_ know the truth. I'm not just imperfect. I'm so much less than what he thought, than what everyone thinks, Neal. I _killed people_! I did _horrible_ things! I killed a pregnant woman. _Robin's unborn child_. And somehow I get a free pass because I'm The Savior. And I can't... it's not _fair_ that everyone sees me as this epitome of good that nothing dark can touch, and call me a hero for destroying the Dark One, because it's _not true_!"

Emma should have been relieved that everyone forgave her immediately, didn't even hold her accountable when she was doing all of those horrible things, but she _wasn't_. She pretended otherwise, and sometimes she even had herself convinced, but the dreams... remembering what that power felt like, remembering how she'd _liked_ it and _the things she did_... it just wasn't right. Why didn't everyone remain as bigoted and judgmental as they had proven themselves to be time and again _just because it was her_? She killed Zelena and her unborn child, _because she killed Neal_ , but not for justice, _just to make her pay_. Her parents should have been up in arms about her killing a pregnant woman, an unborn child, but they insisted it wasn't her fault, she shouldn't hold herself responsible; it was the beast within.

The Dark One inside her was nothing at all like she'd anticipated. The headaches were horrible, the snide, uncontrollable voice always spewing darkness in her ears. But the worst of it wasn't the Dark One at all, it was the people she loved. Because she beat people up, killed people, said horrible things to them, and they just smiled and took it and when it was all over they told her what a _hero_ she was!

But if she'd been a real hero, she would have realized or found out or cared what was wrong with Gold so soon after Neal's death that he broke his promise. She should have considered he _wasn't_ breaking it, that something was wrong, that he was trying to do good. And she understood it now, fighting that darkness, and _he_ was the hero for trying to find a way to get rid of it that would spare her from being the next target, because if she was _dark_ it wouldn't go after her first and maybe they would have a chance. But she failed. Like she'd failed at _everything_.

"You don't know what it was like," Emma continued, her voice shaking. "They didn't... they either don't care or don't want to know. They kept trying to be supportive... and behind my back it was all about them, how _they_ screwed up, back to that stupid spell and they could use that as some excuse, why it wasn't my fault, because then I would be evil like your father was and they'd have to treat me like they always treated him, and heaven forbid their progeny should ever be anything less than perfect and reflect badly on them, make _them_ imperfect! But they don't _know_ , they don't know that I was there, that I heard them and their self-pitying self-righteous bullshit. I was upstairs, looking down on them, and it filled me with such anger, such hate for them _that I ripped out my brother's heart and came this close to crushing it."_

At Neal's look of surprise, Emma averted her eyes, then shut them as she remembered, the image still so clear...

"I held this little ping-ball sized ball of white light in my hand and squeezed until he screamed, and I wanted them to suffer, I wanted them to lose their perfect little replacement that they wanted because even making me perfect, I wasn't good enough. And I almost did it. I was sick and tired of him having my life, and having your name, being this _reminder_. I was _so_ close. But your father... he _summoned_ me. So I, I gave the heart to Killian," she confessed, raising her eyes again to his. "He said he was proud that I didn't do it, that it meant there was still good in me, but... I know that's not true, and your father did too. Because he _commanded me_ to. Because he knew I would have crushed it. I would have killed my own brother."

Neal grimaced at that, remembering how afraid he'd been that his father would hurt him. "Emma, you can't hold yourself responsible for what some... demonic spirit made you do, not when you were fighting just to keep your sanity. Yeah, it preyed on your weaknesses, your fears, but it was a millennia old evil and your being The Savior... some half-assed good-magic-swapping spell was never going to make you a match for it, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Author was just a pawn who figure it out and that the Apprentice knew the hat wouldn't contain the Dark One, that it would go after you, and that's why he gave your parents that idea in the first place, because anyone who's spent centuries doing damage control for ancient demon summoning evil and handing out world-altering pens is probably shady as shit."

After a pause, he continued, "You had a better chance of containing it than anyone, but that doesn't mean you should be held to a higher standard. There was always gonna be collateral damage, whoever played host, and there was probably _less_ for you being the one to take it on."

"But it doesn't change that I hurt people I love because of... of fear and anger and hate that was _already_ in my heart," Emma argued. "I told my parents that I forgave them. I thought that I _could_ , but didn't, I hadn't. I thought that I'd forgiven Regina, that I wanted her to be happy after the effort she put into being a better person, but I really _didn't_. I didn't want her to get a free pass for stuff she wasn't even sorry for. I didn't want to share Henry with the crazy bitch who's the reason I didn't get to raise him and now I have stuck in my head these _fake_ memories that are all knockoffs of _hers_ , so every time I remember him calling me 'mommy', he's really talking to _her_ , the woman who destroyed my family."

Shaking her head, Emma concluded, "Every time I got close to _Henry_... I was so, so afraid of him, because what if, one day, this terrible force inside of me made me hurt him too?"

"No, you couldn't have any more than my papa would have hurt me," Neal insisted. "Henry was your light, Emma. He kept you sane, gave you a fighting chance to be free of that monster and destroy it once and for all."

"I'll _never_ be free of it, don't you see?" Emma countered. "The things I fantasized about while holding that dagger, I _still_ see in my dreams. And the power, I _miss_ it and feeling _better_ than all of them. I'm not a hero for taking on that curse. I failed at being a hero for not helping your father find another way to contain it. I became a villain whether anyone sees it or not."

She was crying now and Neal tried to touch her but she withdrew. "Emma, you are _not_ nor were you _ever_ a villain. You were trying to save everyone and you fought as hard as you could to not give in to the darkness. If you were really a bad person, you wouldn't have been punishing yourself."

Emma shook her head again. "You don't get it. It's not just that I was the Dark One, Neal. Look at the person I became after? That I was _already_ before I even knew about Lily or killed Cruella. I was clinging to my anger,, my hate, my fear, and maybe some spell prevented it from darkening my heart, but _it was there_ , filling up that empty place inside."

"Everyone has some darkness in them, Emma. No one expects you to be a saint."

" _Yes_ they do."

"Okay, _I_ don't expect you to be a saint," Neal clarified. "We've all got... baggage. After the life you've had, Emma, you'd be crazy _not_ to be angry, not to feel hate or fear. But it was _love_ that won out in the end, because you had _more_ love than any of that darkness."

"Did I, though? When your father was in his magical induced coma, I asked Belle how he survived with that demon inside of him, when I could fee it eating me alive. And she told me, he had one bright spot of love to see him through, and that was his love for you. He clung to that love, to that hope, and that was what kept the darkness from taking over completely. She said that I had that love too, because I had my love for Henry. But it _wasn't_ enough. Because I didn't have _you_. Because I let you down. Because I could have saved you. And I didn't."

"Emma, you don't know-"

"I do know," she cut him off. "And I think a part of me always first magic I ever did was in the pawn shop when I used my love to protect my family. But I forgot that. I used _hate_ to protect Henry from Cruella. And I used _fear_ when I split you and your dad. _Fear_ of my love for you. I knew, in my heart, that if I chose love, I could save you, but I was too afraid of needing you like I did back then. I felt that emptiness and instead of filling it with love, I filled it with fear and bitterness. I wished you were dead and then I _let you die_ ," Emma wept.

"How could I deserve to be with anyone good after that? Killian said it was his job to guard my heart, but he couldn't touch the part of it that belonged to you, that I _already_ ruined. I was supposed to be a hero, the Savior. Everyone says my heart was pure and that's how I was able to fight it, how the Dark One was able to be destroyed, but I know that's not true, because if it _was_ , I would have saved you. But I didn't _. I turned my back on the thing that made me._ You were my true love _and I killed you_. And I damned myself."

Before Neal could dispute her claim, Emma reached into her chest-

"Whoa, hey-" he cried out before she gave a tug and pulled out her heart. A very... odd looking heart. It was red but with a white glow within that appeared to be falling into a large dark center like light falling past the event horizon of a black hole.

After what felt like mesmerized minutes, but was surely less, Neal raised his eyes back to Emma's, tear-filled and... unfocused.

"Em-"

Her eyes rolled back and she went suddenly limp, the heart falling from her hand. Neal lurched forward, managing to catch the crystalline organ and half grab Emma, though not fast enough. She struck her head on the counter on the way down and blood blossomed from a cut on her forehead.

Just then Henry entered the room calling out, "Hey, did you pack the-"

He stopped short at the sight of his dad holding a magical heart and pressing paper napkins to his mom's head. Her face was wet with tears. "What happened!?"

"Emma thought it was a good idea to play show-and-tell with her heart and then passed out and hit her head," Neal explained, trying to sound calm while inside he was a fucking mess. He'd had no idea that Emma was holding in so much guilt and self-loathing, but maybe he should have known. She built walls just like his papa, tried to be strong all the time because her life had made her fearful of being vulnerable and appearing weak. He knew that he was part of the reason for that, a big of it - in both of their cases. He had his own complex dealing with _that_.

"I didn't even know you could remove a heart outside of Storybrooke," Henry uttered, kneeling down. "Why does it look like that? Is it because there's no magic here?"

"I don't know."

"We just have to put it back in then."

Henry took the heart and gave it a proper shove as he'd seen others do... but all it did was result what sounded suspiciously like a rib cracking. "Why won't it work?"

"Shit."

"What?"

"Her pulse, it's getting slower."

"What do we do?"

"I'll call 9-1-1," Neal decided, even though he had no idea what medicine could do. "You call your mom."

* * *

AN: You didn't think they would actually make it into The Magical Kingdom, did you? Some snippets of dialogue were inspired by twuwuvdearie's tumblr post "Let's Image an Unforgiven Emma" post/118797225978/lets-imagine-an-unforgiven-emma

Next up: Belle really needs to ward the Library against intruders. And The Author really needs to learn how to edit down disgustingly long, dialogue-heavy chapters. Warning, the next one is the longest chapter yet, and is mostly heroes and villains shouting at each other in a confined space and without the promised margaritas.


	33. Be Our Fucking Guest

**CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: BE OUR FUCKING GUEST**

(In which everyone ends up at the Library, and they do not obey the quiet rule.)

It was around midday that Belle grabbed lunch to go from Granny's and made her way to the Library on what was usually her day off, until a frantic Snow White had called her, saying that Emma had gotten herself into some sort of trouble that required research. She should have known. Both that Emma would screw something up and that her parents would only call on Belle for "nerd stuff" as Hook had referred to her place in the group after, no doubt, learning the word from Henry in his attempt to be "cool"... or maybe from Charming, considering the Prince seemed to have about the same level of distaste for literature as the Pirate, preferring to jump headfirst into every situation without even the most minimal of research into important things like strategy and tactics. Honestly, Belle believed without the help of Rumple and the Blue Fairy, neither of those two so-called leaders would have been able to find their way from one end of King George's castle to the other, let alone won a battle, _let alone_ two wars to take over two kingdoms!

 _I'm being suffocated by an atmosphere of barely literate incompetence,_ Belle thought with an underwhelmed sigh as she crossed the street on a particularly pleasant spring day that should have been spent pruning rose bushes in the afternoon and discussing with her husband the matter of the increasingly cult-like farm and forest communities in the evening over a bowl of Rumple's homemade Mulagatani soup. She'd already had to waste many a day off disinfecting the Library after her ill-advised attempt to give Hook a chance, given that she had married a "villain", but in retrospect, her first impression was correct: there was a big difference between someone who feared the loss of power after acquiring it through a cursed entity that possessed them for three centuries and someone who was just a violent sociopath. Belle wouldn't deny she had some issues that had inspired her attraction to Rumplestiltskin, but _hoo boy_ , Emma must have had one seriously fucked up childhood and time in prison to fall ass over tits in love with a man who had a short time previously called her dried up and useless and left her to starve to death! Well, of course, there was the pixie dust, and the neurosyphilis, and the monkey herpes, but _still_...

 _Tits, ha_ , Belle sniggered to herself. Sometimes those Lacey traits were amusing to have.

Sometimes she wished she could just go play pool.

Instead, she was going to be stuck in a room with some of her least favorite people who only considered her family when they needed her brain power and had _completely and utterly failed_ to keep their promise of maintaining her literacy program for both children and adults brought over with the Second Curse or other later inter-dimensional means of immigration. It was just _infuriating_ how little these people cared about knowledge, and Belle often wondered if this was how famous philosophers and scientists like Socrates and Galileo felt, wanting nothing more than to share their knowledge with others and inspire them to advance humanity only to be met with scorn and accusations of blasphemy! The Charmings and their cohorts might not go so far as to consider her curious mind traitorous to the status quo they'd established, but they sure did as little as humanly possible to spread her philosophy, as though learning about the world might poison the minds of the peasants into rising up and overthrowing their incompetent asses the moment they got back to the Enchanted Forest - which they all still believed in like they were awaiting The Rapture.

Belle was fairly certain that people returning from the dead did not have some positive magical or religious significance. Negative? Almost certainly! Which was also something she could be researching and discussing with Rumple, instead of straightening out yet another Charming Family Fuck-Up. Of course, Rumple hadn't come along, telling her when she called him at the pawn shop to cancel their lunch plans that he had no interest in being involved. If Baelfire wasn't in any danger, and it was just Emma who'd gone and done something idiotic, well... Rumple didn't think much of Emma for reasons that Belle supposed were both somewhat justified and for certain aspects of her personality reminding him too much of himself and his bad decisions as a young man... the sort of person he didn't want hurting his son as he had. Of course, Rumple could have shared all of this with Emma and attempted to apprentice her upon the discovery of her magic and had a positive influence on her, but her husband didn't do the "life coach" thing, as he put it derisively.

Maybe it was for the best. If spending any length of time with Emma was like spending it with her parents, then Rumple probably would have turned her into a snail and stepped on her. More than once, Belle had entertained the notion, though, of course, she would _never_ do it. Well, not the stepping on them part, anyway.

 _"Oh, look it's the bookworm."_

Belle had been so lost in her thoughts as she'd entered the Library that she hadn't bothered to note that it was already occupied. Although, to be fair, the door had been locked, so there had been no reason to consider that someone else would be there already. That someone who'd spoken being Zelena, seated at one of the rearranged tables with Regina, Robin, August, and Emma's parents. Zelena's wrists, at least, were shackled.

"What is _she_ doing here?" Belle snapped.

The last thing she'd expected was Snow to invite along the nutcase who'd tried to murder her children and erase her bloodline from existence. But then, it was also Emma's mother who'd assigned _Captain Hook_ as Belle's bodyguard without any deference to the whole having tried to murder her and physically assaulted her on multiple occasions or offering an apology akin to one given by a ten year old bully on a school playground forced by his teacher... only to later give his victim a wedgie behind the gym for not coughing up some lunch money.

"Turns out I know a thing or two about maintaining magic outside of this podunk little town," stated Zelena with a smirk.

"And since Rumple refused to help..." sighed Regina.

"For some reason," scoffed the former Wicked Witch, "Rumple refused to be in the same room as me!"

"I believe his exact words," drawled August, "were 'I will eviscerate her alive and let flying monkeys feast on her liver before healing her and repeating the process all over again'. It was a whole Prometheus thing."

"Rumple is so kinky. Very into bondage. Definitely a better lover than forest boy over here."

"Shut up, Zelena!" Regina sneered.

Belle eyed both the Mills sisters warily, vaguely registering what Zelena had said. As the meaning slowly sunk into her mind, her eyes widened in horror. It was another thing on which Rumple had lied, but she couldn't blame him, only feel anger at herself for not being observant and attentive to his needs after the way he was abused.

"You're disgusting," Belle finally managed.

"And you're nothing but the mob wife of a washed up don who lost his bite," Zelena shot back. "You don't think Rumple is looking for another way to get power? You really think that was the Dark One? He chose the power, it didn't choose him. And like the philosopher Voldemort said: 'There is no good and evil, there is only power... and those too weak to seek it.' Rumple may be a coward. But he's not weak. I'm not sure I can say the same for you. Or your love. I mean, think about it. It took a random stranger yanking out his heart to cure him, not _true love's kiss_. What does _that_ say about you and your relationship?"

Squaring her shoulders, Belle defended, "It says that we have a _real_ relationship. That we're both flawed and make mistakes and _admit to them_ without trying to place the blame on anyone else. We don't need magical proof. Our love is enough."

"Or maybe you get a thrill out of his ambition, like you apparently do from dressing like a stripper attending the funeral of a Tel Aviv nightclub owner. Call me old fashioned, but I think your skirt should be longer than your vagina. All it takes is a slight breeze to flash your Enchanted Forest. Better make sure you don't bend over around Dildocchio."

"Hey!" August exclaimed, embarrassed. "I can't help my nose!"

"Like I can't help my environmentally conscious complexion when I get jealous," Zelena quipped. "I'm sure there should be a support group for that.

"And you," she waved at Belle, "can take your teenage slut wardrobe along with Emma's camel-toe jeans to 'Mommy Issues Anonymous'."

Snow interjected angrily, "Are you saying my daughter dresses like a slut?"

Zelena rolled her eyes and slouched in her chair before answering, "No, I'm saying your daughter dresses like an emotional trainwreck whose mommy and daddy put her in a magical tree with a puppet who left her to rot in baby jail and then convinced her one and only friend who hadn't betrayed her for magical bullshit yet to betray her for magical bullshit and land her in grown-up jail to have _her_ baby that she had to give up, leading her to ten years of renting out her ruined vagina to the same sort of deadbeat thugs she was making a killing off of. I mean, I may have raped my unborn child's father after murdering his wife, but you are a _terrible_ mother."

Snow glared and Charming looked ready to draw his sword, but Belle beat them both to the punch, stalking toward the redhead, snarling, "You have no right to judge anyone. And the skirt is short on purpose! Not that it's any of your business! I can be a-"

"Empowered, independent woman who shows her book smarts while embracing her femininity, because a strong, self-assured woman can wear four inch heals and skirts from the prepubescent girl's section to make herself feel sexy?" The redhead snorted and rolled her eyes. "Darling, that's just what men want you to believe. You're still just a dumb girl playing into every man's slutty librarian fantasy. The only thing you're lacking in this place is an aluminum pole and cum stains on the floor.

"Actually," she amended, "considering Hook's use of your _sanctum sanctorum_ while you were away and what Cyrano de Bonerac probably gets up to in the mystery section, taking a UV light to the place would look like a glow-in-the-dark Jackson Pollock painting. You don't need those fertility treatments to get knocked up. Just sit down on any surface in that skirt."

"How do you know about that!?" Belle gasped, furious. Yes, she had been undergoing fertility treatments with Dr. Whale, but no one was supposed to know about that! It was embarrassing in a town where all of the fairy tale princesses seemed to breed like rabbits, that she didn't need them gossiping about her and Rumple's difficulties!

"I'm training to be a medical technician, of course," boasted Zelena and she flashed a grin, amending, "Which means I've got access to _all_ your files! _Teehee_!" While the others looked mildly nervous, she continued, "And in your case, I know the former Dark One is shooting blanks. No wonder he's so obsessed with power. Men always have to compensate. You should consider it a blessing, really. Now that he's no longer immortal, he's probably got, what, five, maybe ten good years left? He'll be dead before the sprog is old enough to fall down a portal."

"And you'll probably sacrifice yours in some insane magical ritual," Belle shot back. "The only way you'd let yourself get pregnant was if you needed a sacrifice."

"Yes, but now I'm undergoing extensive medical and psychiatric treatment," pouted Zelena. "I've come realize that my actions were really just an attempt to find empowerment in the tragedy of my of own conception by dominating a nature-loving thief with a wandering dick."

"Hey!" Regina growled. "Don't insult Robin!"

" _Robin_ can speak for himself," her sister retorted, then shrugged, "or maybe he can't. I'm surprised he can read. Actually, I'm surprised he stuck his _arrow_ in the right quiver on the first try, if you know what I mean."

Finally speaking up, Robin stated to Regina, "I told you we shouldn't have brought her."

"Oh, did I hurt your widdle feeweengs?" Zelena cooed.

"You need more than just extensive medical and psychiatric treatment," Regina told her. "More like my high heal up your 'quiver'."

"I'm not _that_ kinky. I draw the line at incestuous sadomasochism. I'm crazy, but I'm not a _monster_."

"I think that's debatable," muttered Charming.

"No one asked you, _ex_ -Sheriff Nolan," snarked Zelena. "Here, I thought you were providing drinks to this get-together. Regina said there would be margaritas. I even made guacamole. I'm very disappointed."

"The Sheriff's Station is still warded against intruders," David grumbled, crossing his arms and glared in Regina's direction. "And _someone_ is apparently also considered an intruder by the Sheriff pro tem, what with having kept him prisoner and raped him for decades."

Regina shot him a glare. " _Technically_ , I only raped him the one time and sexual dalliances under the influence of altered personalities is debatable. But that's beside the point. If you hadn't lied to your wife about your massive gambling debts, we would have margaritas. Actually, we wouldn't be here at all, because your daughter wouldn't have run away to avoid your wife turning into an overbearing harpy in your defense!"

"I tried to call Emma and apologize!" Snow shrilly responded.

"Maybe," David mumbled, "if she didn't have your number go straight to voice mail for incessantly calling her about your damned baby class..."

" _Shut up, Charming_ ," Snow snapped.

"I know," Zelena giggled, "you all should start coming here every week. You can call it 'Hypocrites Anonymous'. Where witless, self-proclaimed heroes who only give a shit about their own happy endings see who has the most self-righteous bullshit justification for screwing over everyone else!"

Flashing a grin toward Belle, Zelena continued, "You know what's more hilarious than his getting fired by his own daughter? That time my sister borrowed your heart and wiped your memory of Rumple revealing that he was dying."

Eyes widening, Belle turned a glare on Regina. "You _knew_ Rumple was dying?"

Regina defended with a scowl, "I had no idea it would mean the _unleashing_ of the Dark One when the last time he almost kicked it, that demon was supposed to just... evaporate benignly into the either. Excuse me for not being the preeminent expert on ancient evil and the nonsensical nuances by which it could or could not be destroyed. Perhaps if _someone_ hadn't killed _my mother_ ," she shot at Snow who turned pink.

"I said I was sorry."

" _You knew he was dying_ ," Belle repeated, "but _that_ wasn't important enough to share?"

"Of course not," scoffed Zelena. "I'm sure it just slipped Gi-Gi's mind, what with the syphilis making her irrationally obsessive over having that crazy writer erase me from existence so she could spend all day shagging the Earl of Adultery! And, you know, the whole thing where she's a selfish bitch with the emotional depth of a teaspoon."

" _I_ have the emotional depth of a teaspoon?" Regina snapped at her.

"I never said _I_ had emotional depth. I'm a high functioning psychopath. I'm embracing it. So should you, instead of this pathetic attempt to conform to society's expectations of normality. You're a sociopath, Sis. Learn to love your crazy! Really, take a look in the mirror and instead of asking it who's the fairest of them all, say to your reflection, 'I'm bad enough. I'm crazy enough. And doggone it, who gives a fuck if people don't like me?'"

After a pause, Zelena considered, "Really, it's a pity you didn't get to chat with the Snow Queen's mirror. Might have knocked some truth into your head to counteract the spirochetes. Then again, a lot of good it did Nerd Girl," she cackled while cocking her head back in Belle's direction.

" _Now_ that was an entertaining bit of magic to behold," she smirked at Belle. "'Everyone sees you for what you really are, a pathetic coward'," Zelena imitated her accent. "And then you tried to slit Rumple's throat! Making you believe horrible things? Yes, the _truth_ is so horrible. Well, letting a girl fall to her near death for a rock _is_ truly horrible."

"How the hell do you know about that?" Belle gaped. "You were-"

"Frozen?" Zelena rolled her eyes. "I was also disembodied and floated around through a time portal, somehow had the magic to re-corporealize myself, _and_ vanish Marian into a pile of atoms, even though removing my necklace was supposed to take away my magic, and another little piece of jewelry I had Monkey Little Jon nick from Robin Hood, the one I imagine he had shoved up his ass back when your boyfriend was horribly torturing him to within an inch of his life for stealing from his horder's paradise, and which I just conveniently happened to have on my incorporeal person, because your dumbshit friends _and_ lover didn't bother to frisk me for any other potentially dangerous magical items, so I could implement a last minute back-up plan to impersonate Marian and ruin my sister's life, conveniently even glamoured my pitch black heart. It's just one of those paradoxes. Don't break your Mensa brain over it any more than it is from dropping that pebble."

As Belle paled further, the former witch giggled and relayed, "Oh, yes, poor widdle Belle let Anna fall down and break her crown and when her memory stone went tumbling after with a shatter, it left a big dark blotch in her grey matter."

The others looked shocked and Belle fisted her hands, trying not to burst into tears and turn as pink as her skirt.

Regina put in, brow raised, " _You_ have brain damage? Well, I suppose that would explain your sudden study-buddyship with Captain Guyliner!"

Belle threw her a glare, though she couldn't deny it. Yes, it was true, the destruction of her memory pebble had caused irreversible brain damage. After the mess with not noticing Rumple's PTSD and strange behavior and her own out of character behavior - like befriending Hook - she'd gone to Dr. Whale, worried that perhaps the Lacey thing had left her with some sort of multiple personality or bipolar disorder. Whale had done a brain scan and concluded that stroke-like damage had been done to an area of her brain associated with memory and with some hypnosis by Archie, they'd concluded that the removal of memories and their physical destruction corresponded to physical damage to the brain... which, more recently, he'd hypothesized might have contributed to Emma's occasionally odd behavior - during the period when Ingrid had possession of some of her memories. Of course, Emma had her memories returned, so her brain was gradually able to reintegrate them with the memories to which those were connected and heal - well, apart from the neurological STD damage - while Belle didn't have that luxury. For someone so enamored of history and language, to be unable to trust her own mind with her own experiences, let alone those she'd read, was both terrifying and humiliating. Their trip around the world was as much to help her cope and heal as it was for Rumple.

"I made a mistake," Belle defended. "And I can see how ruining someone's life would include living with a man you can't stand, in a world you hate, raising his children, getting a minimum wage job since you have no education, and never seeing anyone you knew ever again for the rest of your life _. Well played_!"

" _Cray cray_!" Zelena repeated. "Seriously, though, what's with people around here repeatedly reliving their worst traumas? I guess you felt robbed of that, and that's why you traveled to a far off land to remember exactly how Ogres tore your mummy limb from limb. You wanted to be haunted for the rest of your life with the horrible moment of her demise to build proper princess character. I get that. Not that you're a princess. I bet that really sticks in your craw, surrounded by royals and you the lowly barely-noble from a backwater frontier province. So much so that you hatched a plan to get close to Rumple so you could influence the Dark One in all of his political games and have your sweet revenge. It's quite brilliant, really. And I applaud it."

"That's not true!"

"Isn't it? I mean, come on. You trusted Pippi Longstocking after she told Charming that murdering the local tax collector's associates would free his town from the horrors of the IRS despite her being a foreigner with zero comprehension of the socioeconomic systems beyond trading ice for wool, so instead of freedom they got their asses audited so hard his mummy took an arrow to the heart. I mean, not-yet Prince Charming buying that, sure, but you were supposed to be smart _before you broke your brain_."

"Hey!" David growled.

"But maybe," she accused Belle, ignoring Charming, "it's just that you secretly crave power. Because you looked awfully giddy every time you held that dagger. You liked having power over the most powerful man in the world, and you _hate_ being powerless, don't you? Did the other little lower noble brats exclude geeky baby Belle from their _Ring Around the Rosies_? It wasn't some superior ethics that exiled Rumple, it was your _pride_. You were just too embarrassed to admit that your one selfish choice for an utterly _stupid_ reason had left a permanent dead spot in that pretty little head of yours making you miss all of the blatantly obvious signs that something was very _very_ wrong with your new hubby.

"And the tragic irony, of course, is that even after having it pointed out, you reached all the wrong conclusions. Well, to be fair, you trusted the conclusions of the drunk MILF fetishist who's hobbies included date raping, metaphorical back-stabbing, literal back-shooting, and punching you in the face.

"So," Zelena gloated, "you can throw around accusations, but I got brain damaged before I was even born. You made a choice that nearly cost your husband his life and led to The Savior becoming the Dark One. People in hypocritical libraries shouldn't throw magic memory-containing pebbles!"

Clenching her fists, Belle took a breath. She wouldn't let this crazy woman get the better of her. Maybe what she and Rumple had wasn't a healthy relationship by general psychiatric standards, and maybe they both had some selfish reasons for it, but they were honest about that now, and they understood each other in a way that no one else did - or seemed to care to even try. And maybe that wasn't the classical definition of True Love, but then the examples she'd thus far witnessed were nothing to emulate!

And so she shot back, "Yes, well, at least I have taken responsibility for my actions. I _care_ that I screwed up and hurt people and I am trying to do right, to make up for my mistakes. And _you're_ obsessed with power! That's the only reason you're here! Not some therapy making amends bullshit!"

"No, I'm here because I was promised free _margaritas_ ," Zelena retorted and threw another nasty look at Charming. "I should have known better than to trust Prince Witless. Hey, I bet if he'd gotten face time with the Snow Queen's mirror, he'd have thought it was his evil twin and tried to stab him!"

"Hey!" snapped Snow, "don't insult my husband's intelligence!"

Zelena scoffed. "Really? Are you only just _now_ picking up on that I've been doing that all along? I'm still waiting on _your_ brain scan. Do you have a traumatic brain injury from all the times you've gotten your head smashed into something while trying to be stupidly heroic? Because I'm still trying to understand how you trusted a complete stranger and self-ascribed peasant midwife who inexplicably had a giant piece of expensive bling and full knowledge of this world - _unlike everyone else brought with the second curse_ \- to help you birth you child instead of an actual trained doctor. And fleeing a safe-haven carefully warded against your mortal enemy who wants to kill your infant son and take your daughter's magic in order to let the man you had an extramarital affair with stick his hands up your vagina? That's got to be the worst case of 'baby brain' in human history! And your stint as mayor? You're not the leadership type, you're more of a 'follow a butterfly around for a day' kind of girl."

"Leave my wife alone!" David exclaimed.

"You'd rather I focused on you, the father who insisted that a one-handed, magic-less, alcoholic opportunist who had a stalkerish obsession with the women bedded by the males in Rumple's family and who was cursed to be the singular agent of your daughter's downfall _be her back-up in a magical gunfight with the witch who cursed him_? I guess it takes a psychotic stalker incapable of genuine, selfless human emotion to know one?"

Snorting loudly, Zelena continued, "Honestly, I'm really not sure which one of you is more stupid. Prince 'So what if I broke my arm I'm still doing it because my vitreous chivalry can overcome all physical limitations!' Or Princess 'So what if I'm nine months pregnant and I can feel the baby's head popping out, I am going to waddle weaponless into the middle of a magical street fight with a woman who wants to steal my true love brat and erase me from existence!'"

Regina snorted at that and even Belle failed to voice any protest while the pair glared.

"Either way, if it wasn't for my _slightly_ less deranged little sis, here, you'd have been picking out coffins for both of your children instead of naming one after the man I put in a box... up until you all ceased to exist because of your utter incompetence, of course!"

"Don't you call my wife incompetent!" David snarled, pulling his sword at the same time Snow uttered the same, swapping 'husband' for wife, and drew her bow.

"How about dense then? Doltish? Half-witted? Imbecilic? _Slightly_ less simpleminded than Robin of Lorax over there?"

"Hey," Regina hissed. "You're the brainless bitch who was jealous of growing up with an abusive psychopath!"

"That's not very nice," Cora's voice interjected from the entrance, no one having noticed her arrival. "Sorry, I'm late. I was told to bring salt, and since Roland is no longer melting snails, I thought I would borrow some from Regina's pantry."

"Never mind, Mummy," said Zelena, " _Charming_ didn't bring the margarita machine."

"Typical," scoffed Cora.

"Well, why don't you just _conjure_ them then?" Snow snapped.

Cora rolled her eyes. "Have you ever tried conjured food, dear? It tastes like hot buttered ass. Oh, wait, so does food prepared the regular way in the Enchanted Forest. Zelena _is_ right, though. Your alleged bad-ass banditry aside, all I've ever seen out of you is a half-wit who has the confidence of a child that was raised in a basement. Good thing you had Charming around to bolster your self-esteem with a mystical all-powerful sword that just happened to be a day's ride from your location and coincidentally just when you were feeling uninspired in the matter of waging two-kingdom-wide war, or you might be raising your healthy, well-adjusted, never cursed children on an idyllic farm. But, of course, you'd be peasants, and as your mother liked to say, anything's better than doing manual labor and taking a shit in a hole in the ground!"

" _My mother changed_!" Snow hissed.

"Yes, by forcing some peasant woman to pledge her fealty and endure her spoiled spawn treating her worse than her prized stallion. Did Regina ever mention that she murdered your horse?"

Snow's eyes widened and she threw a furious look at Regina. "You killed Starlight Glimmer McTwinkleshine!?"

Regina shruggingly responded, "He asked to be put out of his misery for being called 'Starlight Glimmer McTwinkleshine'."

"You murdered an innocent horse! What did Starlight Glimmer McTwinkleshine ever do to you!?"

"It was more a case of your father forcing me to give you riding lessons while you didn't even bother to listen to a word I said, yammering instead about 'Do you want an apple, Starlight Glimmer McTwinkleshine?' Or 'Look at that butterfly, Starlight Glimmer McTwinkleshine!' And 'When I grow up, I'm going to be Queen, Starlight Glimmer McTwinkleshine!' _Starlight Glimmer McTwinkleshine, Starlight Glimmer McTwinkleshine_! I had nightmares about that goddamned horse!

"Maybe your mother changed, but she should have gotten around to suppressing your inherited snotty little bitch genetics some time prior to, say, on her death bed, because having actually raised a child instead of foisting it off on a servant, I happen to know it takes more than one lecture for the words coming out of a parents mouth to stop sounding like that trombone in the Charlie Brown cartoons, and you didn't learn a damn thing until you had to depend on the peasants for your survival. You credit your mother with your goodness, but _I_ taught you that lesson!"

"By murdering peasants!? Yes, Regina, that makes perfect sense!"

"Aaaaaanyway," Cora cut in, taking a seat and pinning her youngest daughter with a look. "You were saying, dear, that I'm an abusive psychopath?"

Zelena interjected, "Gi-Gi's just jealous that you like me more than her because _I_ didn't have a hand in killing you... before abandoning years of plotted revenge in our family's name to become BFFs with the witless spawn of the woman who destroyed your life."

"We are _not_ friends! And stop calling me 'Gi-Gi' you skankly, good-for-nothing whore!" Regina seethed.

"Then stop making me live in an insane asylum, you sanctimonious bitch!"

"You live there because you're insane!"

" _You're_ insane if you think you're really one of these 'heroes'!"

Regina conjured a fireball.

Zelena, who'd picked her way out of her handcuffs with a pen Hannibal Lector style, grabbed Charming's sword and deflected the fireball, sending it through one of the windows.

"ENOUGH!" Belle shouted, stepping between the sisters. "No weapons or magic in the Library! No _family feuding_ in the Library. And if you're going to trust Greenie _Mc_ Rapist or the Queen of Black Market Heart Removal," she snapped at everyone, "you can leave me out of it!"

"What?" Snow sputtered, as though that simply didn't compute. "You won't help us?"

" _What did I just say_?" Belle huffed. "In what alternate reality do you think I would trust either of them? Well, I'll tell you, it's _not_ this one!"

At Regina she directed, "I never though much of you, but at least I had always believed you were more intelligent than those two idiots."

"Excuse me?" Regina sputtered.

"You... think we're idiots?" Snow exclaimed.

Belle responded, "I may have suffered the magical equivalent of a stroke, but I think if there was a book entitled _Monarchy for Dummies_ you'd still completely misinterpret the meaning, leave the peasantry to rot, play the victims of your self-made fiasco, and then call Emma a hero for saving the day - when she either did jack shit or made it worse!"

While The Charmings gaped and sputtered, Belle continued, "I am tired of putting up with this shit. Every time one of you does something incomprehensibly stupid that a five year old would know is a terrible idea - _like trusting a homicidal murdering rapist mental patient without magic for advice on what to do with quite possibly the most magical heart in existence -_ you come running to me. 'Belle, there's another crisis that's all our fault and we need you to solve it! Belle, research is hard, can you do it while we run around making it worse because we can't wait more than five minutes to come up with a plan!? Oops, that completely went to shit, what do we do, Belle!?'" she mocked, now yelling, the group of do-gooders and their sponsored recovering villains watching her, rage giving strength to her voice. "Belle, that is the tenth demon summoning this week, holy shit, we have no idea what to do, save us from our incompetence and yet another magical monstrosity it has unleashed upon this town of innocent people we don't give a flying fuck about - _but save us!_ "

"Forget margaritas," tittered Cora, "I should have brought popcorn!"

All the anger and the hurt Belle had bottled up in the past thirty plus years was now flooding out of her, ready to crush everything and everyone. "And to think that I was ever rooting for all of you, ever hoping for you to get your happy endings, because when you apologized," she directed at Regina, "I really believed you meant it.

"And," she directed at Snow, "when you hugged me and asked if I was okay, I really believed you cared. But, as always, I was just too hopeful and naive to realize that none of you really care about me. You just want my help. Steal my heart to use as a walkie-talkie for _your_ happy ending, but fuck how it affects mine. Sell me a load of bull told to you by a lying sack of shit pirate who's betrayed you a dozen times to get revenge on Rumple about how evil Rumple has become without bothering to verify it and then come running to me when my doing what you asked based on your fraudulent 'facts' goes to shit. Because that's what I am to all of you: the help, the girl you go looking for only when you need something. At least when Rumple brought me to the Dark Castle he told me I was going to be his maid!"

"Belle, you can't really mean it…"

Snow's shocked tone only made her angrier.

"I goddamn mean every word of it and I'm not nearly done, Princess 'let's show you how much we care about your safety and well-being by forcing you into a small locked room with the man who punched you in the face, shot you, and repeatedly attempted to kill you as your body guard and then completely forget about you until I need someone to babysit the child I let get stolen by this sociopath for all of the completely legitimate reasons _Zelena_ cited. Which I could have told you was just about the most fucking idiotic plan ever conceived if you hadn't forgotten that I existed as soon as Neal was dead and my research skills were no longer necessary!"

David tried to interject, "Belle, that's hardly fair. Things were happening so fast-"

"Then learn some accuracy instead of trying the first bullshit idea that comes to mind, Wyatt Earp! Or find someone who can! Like me! Before you fuck it up even worse!" Belle snapped at him.

Glaring at all of them, she continued, "I've always done everything to help you. I've spent endless nights doing researches for you, looking for spells, translating them, looking for the necessary magical items, and maybe if I had not spent so much time in this Library or in the shop trying to help you I would have had more time to spend with Rumple after his son's death and I would have realized there was something wrong with him, that he was sliding back into the darkness and maybe I would have realized it soon enough to help him deal with his heart in a way that didn't involve corrupting Emma _or_ her becoming the Dark One. And what do I get from all my hard work for you people? Less than nothing. I had to take a year long vacation to keep from burning this fucking town to the ground. I asked _two_ things of you. To keep the Library open and keep my literacy class going. Instead, I come back to find this place has been turned into a gambling den strip club and you're passing out _comic books_."

"We did try to keep the class going," Snow attempted to speak up. "It was just... it took a lot of time-"

"Away from your baby making, sure," Belle retorted. "And I guess it was my fault for forgetting that you only have a fourth grade reading level," she snapped, drawing a hurt gasp from Snow. "Gods forbid you should put any effort into helping anyone other than yourself, right? I mean, _none_ of you stood by my side when Rumple died. No one helped me and Baelfire when we tried to bring him back. In fact, _you outright told us in not so many words that we could go fuck ourselves because we weren't family_."

"Belle, that's not-"

"Absolutely true," Regina piped up drawlingly. "I was there. You told the two of them to fuck off with an implied 'and die for all Charming and I care'. And after giving the pirate mascot a horse and supplies no less. If that's not a royal burn, I don't know what is. She's smarter than you, better looking than you, and didn't have to make shady deals with Rumple to get him to do her bidding. You _hate_ her, Snow, admit it. And Neal... well... that much is obvious. He's the son of the Dark One and a peasant, yet still probably has better than a fourth grade reading level, and your has-to-be-perfect child would be mating down on the number scale instead of mating up with Hook who, sure, he was a filthy pirate, but he had even Emma beat in the looks department, which would guarantee perfectly pretty future princes and princesses for your Christmas cards instead of whatever comparatively homely Cathedral custodian she might pop out with the jewel thief."

"Plus, you know, the whole underage premarital sex stolen virtue is clearly what made Emma grow up to be a filthy whore addicted to one night stands thing," interjected Zelena.

Which earned a group, "SHUT UP, ZELENA!" from all, save Cora.

"I hate to say it," Belle spoke up, "but Regina is right. As a result of your selfishness and warped expectations, this _witch_ managed to trick us and got Neal sacrificed for her plan to go back in time and screw over all of you. So what did you do? You recast the fucking darkest curse ever created and if that wasn't bad enough, _because all magic comes with a price_ , you found a loophole to negate that price and thought you were so virtuous and soulmate-y that it would mean rainbows and uniform stickers for here on out. Never mind you were pregnant when you killed your husband to save your replacement baby by once again placing the burden on the kid you'd entirely given up on up to that point, so when you split your heart, what if that gamble hadn't worked? You'd have killed yourself and your unborn child, murdered your husband, and trapped everyone in a town at the mercy of the Wicked Witch _with no forethought into how Emma would even get there to save everyone when she had no fucking memory_!

"And what did your 'successful' half-assed, halfhearted back-up plan get you? The entire fucking reason you cast the curse, to find Emma so she could use her magic to defeat Zelena before she could carry out her plan _didn't happen_. No, instead Emma lost her magic, Zelena changed time, and then the bitch came back and screwed things up even more to the point that you had to get some sociopathic scribe to try and fix things _by fucking it up further_.

"At this point, this trainwreck of an alternate reality created by your daughter's bad fanfiction rewrite of your meet cute has probably had so many compounding Butterfly Effect alterations over the thirty plus years between that past and her returning with that whiny 'love yourself' ice bitch and her screwed up family bullshit, that it's no wonder everyone acts like self-centered assholes who think justice is becoming best friends with your attempted murderer!

"Except for Rumple, of course," Belle continued, seething, "because for some reason he's always an irredeemable bastard no matter how pure his heart is or how many times you go to _him_ for help. And _never_ help him. None of you, not even Emma, or even _Henry_ worried about Rumple after his captivity, after he had to leave his son's body in the middle of the forest and then didn't even get to attend Neal's funeral. And then you came to me with some story told by _Hook_ about his evil deeds and _I_ was foolish enough to believe you had actually confirmed what he was doing, that he was trying to hurt us when _he was trying to save us all, especially Emma!_ Everything went to shit after that, because you were calling for his demise and toasting your efforts! Until That Apprentice finally revealed the truth, and then you were _so_ concerned that you rushed to the pawn shop _to save your own asses_!

"That's all Rumple and I have always been to you," Belle snapped, "people to ask for help when your lives are in danger and to despise the rest of the time. You only were luckier with me because I never ask for a price, but now I realize why Rumple did."

"You have to understand," Snow argued, "when there's a danger we're not really thinking about the needs of the people who might help us…"

"My Gods," Belle exclaimed, "do you even hear yourself? How selfish and narrow-minded that sounds? _You are monarchs_. _It's your job to think about the people who might help you!_ But you don't get it. You never do. From your deplorably inexcusable, historically inaccurate reappropriation of 'fireside chats' to this current impending shitstorm with the isolationists at the edge of town, all you do is rain down on all of us problems _you're_ responsible for, and with infuriating frequency. And _every time_ , all you ever care about is _getting your own ass out of the fire_.

"And then this mess between Emma and Neal?" Belle continued, scoffing. "You practically pushed Emma into a marriage bed with Hook after mourning Neal for all the length of time it took to walk from the cemetery to Granny's while you had the nerve to name your son after him, to paint yourself as these compassionate heroes when it was really just self-righteous bullshit to sweep your culpability under the rug like your compendium of 'take our sage advice as the epitome of perfect people who can do no wrong' that you convinced yourself was penance for cursing an innocent baby and sending it to another world - in order to save yourselves from the apparently too-hard task of getting your heads out of your virtuous asses and actually raising your daughter with all of the uncertainty and mistakes that entails. But then, your idea of parenting is snapshot moments and the play dates you want to have, because once they grow up, well, if you didn't have those selfish early memories to gloat over, _they're_ the disappointment.

"You wonder why Emma's ripped her heart out? Why it's a magical mess? It's because you are the absolute worst parents I have ever seen! And having met Rumple's father _and_ knowing Cora, that's saying something! But at least they never spewed self-righteous bullshit excuses for destroying lives!"

Regina snorted. "I can't say I disagree on that point."

Belle turned on her. "You think you're better? You fraudulently adopted the child of the woman you tried to murder as a baby, whose life was completely destroyed, who had to give up her baby because of the life you're responsible for her having, and then named the kid after the father you murdered to get the happy ending you promptly decided was boring as watching paint dry. And when Henry, shockingly, was unhappy and confused about being stuck in a town where he had no friends because no one aged, you tried to gaslight him. You all love to say I have Stockholm Syndrome for falling in love with Rumple, but after ten years of being emotionally and physiologically abused and brainwashed, Henry's so desperate to excuse away the Evil Queen's crimes to have the mommy he wishes raised him instead a cold-hearted tyrant, that no matter what you do, he'll still love you.

"You abused him with magic, tried to kidnap him and leave all of us to die, then threw a pity party and called yourself a victim because someone else stole your mass murder/kidnapping plan and had the gall to _torture the Evil Queen -_ and Henry says you're not a villain _because you're his mom_? You're a 'hero' because you gave him memories and left him with Emma so he wouldn't be left alone and stricken with another bullshit case of amnesia? That's not _heroic_ , Regina, and that's not some selfless maternal act. It's the _least_ that any decent person could do when the latest magical trophy you horded to gloat over got _yet again_ co-opted by someone even more psychotic. The lesser of two evils is _still_ evil. And yet after your committed mass murder and raped a man you then killed for having the nerve to not sleep with you of his own free will, when you killed an innocent horse to spite a child, your own horse and your own father after having him murderer your husband, after you tried to murder a baby and then kill her years later to covet her illicitly acquired child to preserve your fiefdom - we're supposed to feel so sorry for you?"

Belle laughed coldly as she continued, "How the hell does that make sense when _you_ don't even feel sorry for any of it? Or did you not escape Pan by telling the magically certified truth that you would do it all again because it got you Henry, _your salvation_. Do you have any idea how fucking nonsensical that is?" Belle ranted, throwing her hands in the air. "That literally makes no goddman sense, Regina! _That_ right there is the definition of 'cray cray'. You can't get atonement for doing horrible things by association with something you stole doing those horrible things that you would do horrible things all over again to steal! That is the absolute most fucking illogical and narcissistic concept of redemption I have ever heard, and I spent more days than I would like stuck in this place with Captain Sex Offender who thought being blindly infatuated with a woman to the point of practically believing she farted rose petals and pixie dust was some sort of lazy-ass man's version of redemption for every horrible thing he ever did, except for selling Baelfire out to Pan and cuckolding Neal, because somehow it was a young boy's fault he didn't want to hang out with the bastard his mother loved more than him and sending Emma off to her destiny meant Neal had relinquished any right to still be a part of her life and it was _Neal_ who needed to ask that bastard permission to even try to be part of Emma's family - _and I know that's a run-on fucking sentence, but I don't fucking care!_ "

With a scoff, Belle shook her head and imparted, "And what's most ridiculous? You spent months going on about The Author stopping the villains from getting their happy endings, Regina, but you were so busy babbling and whining about how unfair your life is that you really don't realize how ridiculous you are. You were sitting at Granny's with the people you tried to kill for years, mayor of the town you cursed, the Savior falling all over herself like some teenager with a weird lesbian crush trying to be your best friend, and with your son by your side so desperate for affection that he just nodded at your delusional hallucinations that you actually had happy family gatherings with him and Robin and Roland, while the whole world seems to have forgotten all the horrible things you did to them, including and most disturbingly your husband who probably can't spell 'honor' let alone define it and makes Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber here look like geniuses," she scoffed at Robin and The Charmings.

"You got stuck with the exact same scenario as under the Curse, Regina," she railed, "except they were doing it voluntarily, and instead of suffering they wanted you to be their family. But your response was 'me me me', and, as usual, you didn't get a crisis of conscience until after you'd let the evil genie out of the bottle and presto, _once again_ your devious plan was stolen by an even bigger wackjob who put Henry's life in danger and messed up everyone's lives! And all to get your happy ending with a man you barely knew because some gullible fairy told you a tattoo meant you were true love, which meant the good you had with the son you almost killed and brainwashed to keep as all yours wasn't nearly good enough, because you're still a greedy, selfish bitch.

"Because of you. Because of _all of you,_ " Belle pointed accusingly, _"_ Emma had to sacrifice herself and now she's a complete basketcase! Because instead of actually helping her deal with all of it, like I helped Rumple, you just swept it under the rug, called her a hero, told her nothing is her fault, and then threw a man on top of her to get her over it just like you harassed me _and harassed me_ until I went on that fuck date with Will so I'd stop trying to figure out what Rumple was up to and focus on getting married and having babies - like you'd even actually have let me join your stupid Princess Club even if I had, disgusting _knowledge-seeker_ and compassionate person so completely anathema to your world view that I am!

" _You_ are the reason Emma's heart is abnormal!" Belle shouted. "Every one of you here! You made her the biggest pawn of all in your fucking dysfunctional family drama of inter-generational murder and borderline incest, made her question if she ever had free will in anything, tried to pass off blame for all of the bad things you did so that _she_ had to be the one to clean them up _by sacrificing her soul and her sanity_ just to have the chance at having a family. Well, as far as families go, Emma deserves a hell of a lot better than all of you!"

As the clock tower chimed, Belle headed for the circulation desk, telling them, "I am tired of you people and your completely illogical and self-centered philosophy that you're entitled to everything, and even when you get more than you deserve, it's not enough! Well, _I have had enough_. So when you're all not too busy debating who deserves the most praise for fixing what you fucked up in the first place, you're free to check out a book. Until then _, if you don't get your self-proclaimed heroic asses and evil family relations the hell out of my library in the next thirty seconds, I will pull the goddamned fire alarm and the potion I put in the sprinkler system will turn you all into snails!"_

Regina gave her mother a scathing look as they headed for the door, and Cora shrugged, responding, "What? You told me to dispose of the rest of it. No point in letting a perfectly good transfiguration potion go to waste. She paid good money for it. And I got a Library Card. You should try one. Maybe check out that book by Machiavelli and reinvigorate your inner ruthless monarch. It's quite good!"

"SHUT UP, MOTHER!"

" _Shut up, Mother_!" Zelena parroted mockingly at her sister.

Growling, Regina slapped the cuffs back on her, and declared, "I am eating all of your guacamole _with a margarita_ while you're strapped to a chair and forced to watch _The Wizard of Oz_!"

"No, please, not that again!" Zelena exclaimed, horrified.

Cora smiled proudly. "Now you're getting it, Regina!"

Getting into their truck, David considered with a sigh, "Well... we do have two children. Maybe we should just consider that two out of three isn't bad and-" At Snow's glare he sighed, "Yeesh! I was kidding!"

"Husbands who are a hundred grand in debt don't get to make jokes, Charming," grated Snow, crossing her arms. "Now shut up and drive. You're late for Gambler's Anonymous. And I have a manny-peddy with the girls and three."

"What about Emma?" asked Charming and she rolled her eyes.

"What about her? Belle loves research way more than she hates us. She'll figure it out. She always does... or Rumplestiltskin will. Then, when Emma gets back, we tell her how panicked we were at the thought of her dying and shower her with hugs and kisses and she'll forget to be angry with you."

"And give me my job back?"

"I wouldn't push it, Charming. Besides, a Sheriff's paycheck isn't going to cut it if we're going to pay off the mortgage on that mansion. Have you ever thought about exotic dancing?"

Putting the truck into drive, David grimaced, thinking it was a shame he couldn't rip his half heart out. That sort of thing always seemed to work to get Snow to forget his massively selfish failures and forgive him.

* * *

AN: I really did try to edit this chapter more. 9,000 + apologies! Snippets of dialogue taken from/inspired by sarashouldbestudying's tumblr post "Fuck you" post/117884017558/fuck-you-or-what-i-really-wish-could-happen-in. Thanks so much, awesome ranter, for giving me permission to use your angry Belle meltdown. Additional insults are from the _New Girl_ episode "Par 5". The Wyatt Earp reference is a famous quote by the lawman: "Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything." The name of Snow's horse is from Googling _My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic_ ; I figured the show would provide the perfect name. The Rock Troll pebble was the only thing I could come up with to explain how Belle became OOC in Season 4, including in a pre-Snowing-AU flashback that retcons Season 1. As to several guest reviews early on that called me a Rumbelle/Rumple apologist, I don't consider myself one, and the fact that Belle has the last word and considers her marriage remade into something healthy(r) than the rest was mostly done just to piss off those trolls; I personally think the ship between an older rich guy in a suit and a very young bookish woman in stripper clothes was written that way to appeal to Hollywood studio executives who are banging their assistants/interns, but now that Eddy has let it slip he gets ABC exec's stopping him in the halls to tell him how wet Colin makes their real housewives, there's no reason to give airtime to Rumbelle anymore, and they're focusing on their knock-off _Fifty Shades_ bullshit. (Apologies if there are any deplorable typos. I could only proofread it so many times before my eyes started to cross!)

Next up: A new brand of hell awaits Neal and Henry in Tate's Hell. Also, who names a state park that? Seriously, it sounds like slasher movie title _and_ setting for the gratuitous murdering!


	34. The Legend of Cebe Tate

**CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: THE LEGEND OF CEBE TATE  
**

(In which a plot device from several chapters ago is recycled without even pretending it's not lazy writing.)

Legend had it, Tate's Hell Swamp got its name from Cebe Tate, a local farmer who ventured into the swamp with his shotgun and his hunting dogs to track a panther that was killing his livestock. During his quest, Tate was lost in the swamp for seven days and nights, bitten by a snake, and after drinking from the murky waters to curb his thirst, came to a clearing near Carrabelle, living only long enough to murmur the words, "My name is Cebe Tate, and I just came from Hell!" before keeling over then and there.

Whether the story was true or not, Tate's Hell State Forest was certainly not the sort of place anyone would want to venture at night. While the 200 thousand plus acres stretching between Tallahassee and the Gulf Coast had been planted with trees for logging in the 1950s, since the 1970s the state had been buying back and restoring the land to its original swampy-ness. Or, at least, that's what Henry had read online before they'd left the hospital, and from what he could see in the glow of the headlights, the forest service had done a pretty good job of that.

They were driving on one of the old logging roads and trying not to accidentally swerve into what were probably once drainage ditches but now expanded into boggy ponds overgrown with bay trees that scratched against the sides of the car as they bounced along on the bumpy and muddy road - none of which seemed to bother a still-unconscious Emma, while Henry was sure he had acquired a number of lumps on his head from whacking it against the roof.

Belle had cautioned they couldn't put Emma's heart back in until they were in Storybrooke, but they could hopefully give her an artificial magical heart bypass jump start - or something, Henry wasn't clear on all of the big magical words Belle had used - assuming they found what they were out here looking for. Either way, it was supposed to keep his mom from suffering any further massive coronaries for the next couple of days, enough time to get back to Storybrooke where they could pop her heart back in after getting a magical diagnosis for the apparent "defect" that it sounded like, from what his dad had said, his mom knew about before they left Storybrooke, so it wasn't a result of her heart being outside of her body in a magic-less environment. Between getting stoned on his scattered pixie dust, getting infected with syphilis and monkey herpes, the whole 'removed dark potential' and Dark One thing, and an assortment of subsequent magical and physical ailments, should it really be a surprise that something was amiss with Emma Swan's heart?

Henry just hoped that Belle was right - and that they didn't drive into a pond they couldn't get out of. It would be pretty hard to explain to a park ranger why they were driving around after hours without a permit _with an unconscious woman_ who had to be, by now, reported missing from the hospital, what with an ambulance that was supposed to show up to transfer his mom from the rural hospital in Apalachacola to Tallahassee about an hour ago. Of course, they could get eaten by gators, panthers, bears, snapping turtles, bitten by poisonous snakes, or just mauled by crazed wild turkeys before help arrived.

"I think we're almost there," Henry relayed while squinting at the GPS that kept losing the satellite. They'd passed Graham Creek awhile back and a turnoff that was supposed to lead to one of the "primitive campsites" that, maybe, they would have all tried out for a overnight if they hadn't been at each other's throats and totally had their fill of creepy night jungle camping in Neverland.

A few minutes later, the GPS announced a chipper, "You have arrived at your destination!" and Neal stopped the car, pulling the parking brake.

Their destination was a wet flatwood area, drier than what they'd driven through and overgrown with cypress.

It took a few minutes to get Emma out, find a working flashlight in the trunk, and then head out toward the actual destination in the approximate area that Belle had given them. With Neal carrying Emma and Henry carrying her increasingly monochrome and translucent heart as a sort of magical diving rod - which was super creepy - they set off into the woods.

"I still don't get why Mom would take her heart out," Henry sighed as they walked. "I mean, that seems kinda drastic and, you know, not well thought out a thousand miles from Storybrooke."

"I don't think Emma was really thinking it all through. We were arguing," Neal grimaced.

"Figures."

"Hey!" Neal shot back. "You're the one who brought up He Who Must Not Be Named at the beginning of a two day, two thousand mile car trip, after your mother _failed her driving test_."

"I didn't mean to," Henry defended. "And we wouldn't have had to take a two day, two thousand mile car trip if you'd stopped being so weird about He Who Must Not Be Named and just had sex already! And, don't make me state again that I want you and Mom to have sex, because as your offspring that evolutionarily disgusts me, but it's like my thing to make sure everyone gets their happy ending, and you two are not going to be happy until you have a taco party."

"Taco party?" Neal repeated, brows furrowed. "Isn't that 'the talk' for lesbians?"

Henry gave him an annoyed look, though he had to concede the point with a snort. "Me and Mom walked in on Gran and Gramps. I was eleven. We were making tacos for a party at Granny's. I didn't know what they were doing. It's kind of an in-joke."

"Ah. I've heard about those. In-jokes," Neal quipped, then grimaced a little. "Me and Emma used to have those. Feels like forever ago, though. And now, instead of being funny, it's like time transformed them into insults," he sighed, then shook his head. "Sorry. I know you really wanted this trip to go well, buddy. For us to work things out. Maybe we'd have managed if, you know, if your mom hadn't ripped her heart out to prove her point..."

Letting out a sigh of his own, Henry grouched, "Why can't we have one actual family _anything_ that doesn't turn into a magical fuck-a-palooza?"

"Probably because our family is a fuck-a-palooza," said Neal. "Until we work out all our crap, we're just taking it with us."

"Yeah, I guess," sighed Henry. "I just wanted one time for things to work out, for us to... I dunno... feel like a real family instead of people who got stuck together because of some crazy circumstances. I know you and Mom both want that. I know if the stuff hadn't happened with the Vault, Mom would have realized that you guys were supposed to be together. I wish you would just... cut her some slack, Dad. I know she messed up, but you messed up too, and she wouldn't have agreed to this trip if she wasn't desperate to prove that even though she messed up in the past, she's fighting for you now. So why can't you guys just stop going in circles about not trusting in each other when you needed to then and have faith in each other _now_?"

"I think it's more complicated than that, buddy," Neal sighed.

"Yeah, I know it's complicated. Mom's got a ton of other family issues, between sharing me with Regina and sharing her perfectionist parents with a brother and sister that she says she's cool with, but I know she really isn't, and that's given her all kinds of additional trust and insecurity issues she doesn't know how to deal with, so she pretty much just doesn't," said Henry. "I know what it's like to want to find your parents and have all these ideas of what they'll be like, but for mom... they're legit famous fairy tale characters that gave her this initial impression that she had all these huge expectations to live up to that probably informed a lot of the choice she made, that maybe she wouldn't have if she'd known that pretty much the entire premise of their being super virtuous heroes was based on a lie they perpetrated that kind of resulted in her ending up an orphan. And Archie said, he thinks, people who grow up orphans stay children their whole lives, at least in some ways, with like... decision making and stuff, so you can't really expect Emma to know to make the right choices when she didn't have anyone to teach her the difference," he reasoned. "I mean, I guess I learned by doing the opposite of my mom's bad examples, but only because she cared enough - about me or herself, I dunno exactly," he admitted with a shrug, "to try and grill certain lessons into my head that I realized were pretty messed up. It's like Belle says, the worst thing in the world isn't hate, it's apathy, and that's what Emma grew up with. And every time she thought some loved her, it turned out they were just using her. Or that's what she thought, anyway. That's gotta mess a person up, right?"

Neal frowned at Henry's rather astute pop psychology while adjusting his hold on Emma, who seemed so big and strong most of the time with her in-your-face attitude but was really just a slip of a thing barely over five feet tall - though she was probably in better physical shape than he was, having his pizza-and-bagels-subsisting body restored to its lapsed six month gym membership physique after death; with the temporary turn back into a kid, he'd not had nearly enough time training with Mulan to entirely work off the take-out food gut that he'd been trying rid himself of with walks through Central Park home before this whole insanity began. Maybe it was stupid to feel embarrassed that Emma was in better shape than he was, to worry about what was such a trivial sort of disappointment in the grand scheme of things.

He remembered in Neverland when Emma's mom had basically told her she was a disappointment and wanted a new baby to do mommy things with. It was pretty brutal and completely unexpected from what he'd just assumed Snow White would be like as a mother. And had made it hard to be mad at Emma over the whole 'I wished you were dead and I'm not giving you a second chance' thing. Neal had understood as the group was spilling their secrets that everyone means cruel things sometimes, when anger and bitterness and hurt just... festers. And when you're afraid of being in pain. So, those things, they can be true, but at the same time... you know that you don't _want_ to mean them. And so he'd just assumed that mother and daughter (and her father besides) had worked that out, worked past it following the mess with Lily and the Dark One; but that obviously wasn't the case, and Emma still felt like a failure in all the ways in which Neal wanted to believe her mother hadn't actually meant, even if Emma had obviously interpreted it that way. Of course, given his own interactions with her parents, then and more recently, maybe he shouldn't have assumed; he'd taken it all personally, like they were just directing some kind of prejudice against him specifically, but maybe it was really just their general way of treating _everyone_ , including Emma.

Maybe it was true that all parents messed up their kids... whether it was by abandoning them _or_ raising them... or a combination of the two. It had to be some miracle that Henry was still pretty level headed, his rebellious behavior contained to one of his operations gone fubar rather than spiraling into some real self-destructive crap like cooking meth in August's old trailer in the woods. Especially considering this family just seemed to have a nasty habit of getting stuck in a loop, saying all of that hurtful crap, never getting far enough beyond it to put it permanently in the rear view.

Or they did, but it was always in the midst of some crazy magical shit, like finally hashing it out with his old man only for the celebration to end in a murder-suicide.

Neal knew Emma hadn't intended to keel over in a crummy beach house, though, she'd just been trying to make a point - with a visual aid that was glowing in Henry's hand... the glow having gotten significantly weaker since she first ripped it free.

Before Neal could say anything to Henry's point, his son exclaimed, "Oh, look here we are!"

Here was a swampy pond about the size of a kiddy pool with a rusted truck axle half submerged in the weeds and what looked suspiciously like leeches. It also did _not_ smell great. But Belle had said to look for a tree ( an endangered Whitewood, specifically) that had a carving of a lion on the trunk, and there it was. Apparently, the publicly known "legend" of Cebe Tate failed to mention the magic-related part about that scummy water he drank (and misinterpreted the carving as his doodling of that panther in his snake-bite-delirium), but Belle was 95 percent sure that this pond was a bit like the healing waters in Neverland, and that Tate had probably drank it after the snake bite, which had allowed him to survive to make it out of the swamp, after which, he _might_ have survived if he'd known it was temporary... and had lived in an era in which anti-venom existed. Of course, they didn't know exactly when during those seven days he got bit and drank the water, and Emma was incapable of drinking, which meant an alternative plan.

 _The things we do for love_ , Neal thought as he waded into the stinky, oily pond.

Once he was in the middle, the dark, smelly water at about mid-thigh height and wicking up his boxers through the drenched fabric of his jeans, Neal bent over and dunked Emma like one of those river baptism things.

"Hey, I think it's working!" Henry exclaimed as the heart in his hand grew more vibrantly red.

Just as he spoke, there was coughing, splashing, and struggling, forcing Neal to release Emma. He smiled, relieved - and then the shaft a rusted car axle collided with his junk, causing him to see stars as he fell face first into the pond, and the woman he'd just saved shrieked-

"Get away from me, you pervert!"

Correction: woman was not an accurate description, because standing drenched at the side of the pond and brandishing the rusted pipe was a fifteen year old Emma Swan.

"Awww crap," Henry groaned while Neal coughed and spit a leech out of his mouth.

* * *

AN: A shortie after two excruciatingly long chapters. I think that's the end of any excessive lengths and rantings. Henry's closing line "Oh, look, here we are!" is a shout-out to a now rather old fanfic series in the _Harry Potter_ fandom in which it was a running joke used often by one character to prematurely end conversations. Any guesses? Obviously, the pond was the Fountain of Youth. Did you know that the poet Neal Cassady's middle name was Leon, which is the County in which Tallahassee is located, named for Ponce de Leon, of course. A lion standing on its hind legs is on the family crest of both the House of de Leon and the House of Trastámara, that of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Information on Tate's Hell, including the legend of its namesake, is taken from Divisions-Offices/Florida-Forest-Service/Our-Forests/State-Forests/Tate-s-Hell-State-Forest.

Next up: A de-aged Emma Swan finds herself on the road with two very unusual campers, and perilous situations featuring embarrassing misunderstandings occur.


	35. Emma

**CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: EMMA**

(In which an actual roadtrip and weird family bonding begins.)

"I'm really sorry," Emma apologized as Henry finished using a cigarette lighter to get the last leech off of his father's chest, a particularly large and uncooperative one that had fastened itself to the tattoo over Neal's heart. Which she tried not to stare at - in curiosity! - while cinching Henry's belt super tight on a borrowed pair of pants, which looked kind of ridiculous along with his plaid shirt hanging off her like a nightshirt. Neal had found a pair of galoshes in the trunk that fit, though, so at least she didn't have to worry about stepping on leeches in her bare feet.

"I said it's fine," Neal reassured, wincing.

"I just... I really don't remember how I got out here. I don't remember being in a hospital," Emma explained while picking at the plastic bracelet on her wrist.

The last thing she remembered was walking off after her fight with Lily, annoyed that her plan to take the bus was derailed and trying to decide if she should pay the extra money to take the train or risk hitchhiking but save her money. Neither one really explained, though, her having been in a hospital and then ending up out here. Henry, the boy about her age, had said his grandfather got stabbed hitchhiking as a young man, fell into a coma, and then woke up in a "fugue state" and wandered off from the hospital into the woods, trying to find a place he remembered, and nearly drown in a stream before his grandmother found him, so maybe in her case she'd gotten in a car accident or something and then wandered out of the hospital and hitchhiked and was kidnapped or something? Of course, this pair could also be her kidnappers, though driving into the middle of a swamp in an old Volkswagen to try and feed her to gators seemed pretty far fetched, particularly when they had a gun so they could have just shot her already and been done with it, unless they were having second thoughts because she didn't remember now? Every scenario sounded like an episode of _Dateline_!

"So... this is supposed to be The Fountain of Youth?" asked Emma. "It looks like a dirty pool of tetanus... and leeches. Why would you guys come out here?"

"The thrill of local lore?" Neal responded, then expanded, "My stepmother's an amateur historian with an interest in occult type stuff. She wanted us to get a sample of the water."

"So... she's nuts then," Emma scoffed.

"Well, her nuts saved your life," said Henry.

"So... your step-grandmother's really your step-grandfather?" she couldn't help but quip, which got a momentarily confused look from the boy and a snort from Neal.

"Not in the indecently short skirts she wears," he muttered while closing the first aid kit, then told her, "We're driving up to Tallahassee tonight. Why don't you come with us?"

Emma was tempted to agree just on principal of being in a swamp full of man-eating animals, but her experience with people who seemed nice had gotten her _here_ , and there _were_ worse things than being in a swamp with man-eating animals... though this did rank as the worst situation she'd gotten herself into.

"You can't stay here on your own, Emma," Neal continued off her conflicted silence. "There's alligators, jaguars, bears, poisonous snakes. This forest was named for being a hellish place to get lost in," he explained, amending, "And the closest town is a one street place of about a thousand people, so they'll figure out pretty quick that you're a runaway."

"How do you know that?" Emma asked, defensive. "I mean, what makes you think I'm a runaway? Just because I whacked my head and ended up in Florida..."

"I ran away when I was fourteen," Neal told her. "You run away young enough, you get a certain vibe - and you know how to recognize it in others."

"Oh." Emma grimaced. "I was... I was in foster care, but... it didn't really work out... and... I thought I'd try things out on my own again. Not that it worked out great the last time..."

"You don't have to explain, Emma," Neal said with an easy smile. "I get it. But considering your head injury, you shouldn't be on your own, at least not for awhile. We can drop you back at the hospital, or you can come with us to Tallahassee, then decide in the morning if you want us to take you somewhere on our way back north."

Emma couldn't really argue against that logic. As long as they didn't Patty Hearst her into robbing banks or something, she figured she didn't have much choice, so she nodded while Neal concluded, "Let me just, ah, take a leak and then we'll get out of this swampy hell."

Emma watched him head to The Bug's open hood and then glanced uncomfortably at Henry who was, she had to admit, kind of cute in a dorky sort of way. He looked like he hadn't quite yet grown into his ears and nose, neither of which seemed to be inherited from his father. Being an orphan, she'd always found herself fascinated by the resemblance of family members and wondered where she got her own.

"So... you and your dad are on roadtrip vacation, huh?" she asked.

"Yeah, we're from Maine."

"Really?" Emma asked, a bit startled. Maine was not a state she wanted to visit, yet at the same time she wished she'd had the nerve to go there instead of taking the first bus to Minnesota.

"Well, I was born in Phoenix and my dad's actually not from here at all. He lived with a foster family in London for a bit when he was fifteen after leaving home, but that didn't work out and he eventually ended up in New Jersey."

"What about your mom?" Emma asked, curious. "I mean, are your parents together? You dad doesn't wear a ring..."

"They're... complicated," Henry answered with a frown and a sigh. "It's a crazy story, really, that you wouldn't believe."

Emma shrugged. "I just woke up two thousand miles from the last place I remember wearing a buttless gown _in a swamp_. Try me."

"Yeah, I'm really trying to burn the image of your butt out of my mind," retorted Henry, drawing a blush and scowl. Shrugging, he relented, "Okay, fine, I was born in prison and then adopted and raised until I was ten by my grandmother's step mother."

"That's not so weird. I've known lots of kids in the System who've got parents in prison. So... did the old lady croak then and you went to live with your dad?"

Henry snorted at Emma's rather unsympathetic inquiry. "No, she wasn't that old. My family's not from here. She was only a few years older than my grandmother, who was still a kid, when my great grandfather married her. He was old and kinda pervy, I guess. He'd been engaged to _her_ mother when he was younger, but she was framed for jewel theft by the woman he ended up marrying, my actual great-grandmother, so after he found out about that, and his wife died - she was actually poisoned by his would-have-been wife, my step great-great grandmother, but I don't think he knew that or he wouldn't have decided that the best way to make up for not marrying Cora was to marry her barely legal daughter... who later ended up getting her father and secret lover to kill him with poisoned snakes."

Emma's eyes had widened. "No way!"

Nodding, Henry continued, "Yep. She also tried to have my grandmother killed, took out a hit on her right after the funeral, but she escaped. After marrying my grandfather, my grandmother then made a deal with my paternal grandfather, who was kind of a crime boss in that country, and he made sure that her stepmother couldn't hurt her anymore. She still tried, though, and my grandparents ended up having to give up my mom, so she ended up in this country with the son of a family friend who was supposed to look after her and keep her safe, only he was a total creep and left her foster care instead. Then, when she was a bit older than you, she met my dad and got pregnant with me, which was when the creep showed up again. My parents were criminals at the time, so he blackmailed my dad into leaving my mom, saying he'd take care of her, 'cause of the whole family issues stuff and _his_ dad that he'd run away from, what with being a crime lord and all. Only instead of looking after my mom _again_ he sold her out, called the cops, and took all of the money my dad had tried to give her to finance a sex vacation to Thailand."

"What a jerk!"

"I know!"

"How'd you end up with your crazy step-great-grandmother, though?"

"I still don't exactly know," said Henry with a shrug. "I was supposed to be adopted in Arizona, but somehow I ended up in Boston. I think it was probably something to do with my paternal _great-_ grandfather, who was some kind of child trafficker and abuser while my grandfather just did regular black market adoptions. My great grandfather's goons tried to adopt me to take me out of the country, but my grandfather got my step great grandmother to adopt me first. So, I guess it was a lesser of two evils situation. She wasn't a _horrible_ person after moving here, I guess, not like in the 'Old Country' where she'd had people killed. But she still tried to kill my birth mom after I found her and got her to come to our town. Only I ended up poisoned instead, so after that she tried to be nicer. It's a work in progress," he admitted.

"Anyway, my mom and grandfather found my dad, and then things got complicated again," Henry explained. "We thought his fiancée had killed him after he got deported. Only she hadn't. Then we thought my adoptive mother's half sister had killed him, because she's _really_ crazy and after my grandfather fired her years ago had been working up some scheme to get over here and get revenge on him. Kind of like her mom who did try, but my grandmother killed her in self-defense," he said, frowning a bit. "Where was I?"

"Your half-aunt-slash-step-great-grand-aunt tried to kill your dad?" Emma reasoned.

"Oh, right. But he was just being held captive by former associates of my grandfather for a few years. Only, before he got back, my mom had married his step-dad that she didn't know was his step-dad, because neither of them had mentioned it, I guess. My step-grandfather slash step-dad had only turned up about a week before my dad's presumed death. He was a total creep, but he fooled my mom and gave her syphilis that he got from my grandmother who was basically the village slut after she stepped out on my grandfather because he injured himself to get out of military service - that was before he became a crime lord, tracked her down, and killed her when she said she didn't regret abandoning my dad in a war-torn country with child soldiers and ethnic cleansing and shit. She was pretty horrible, so Killian had to be. And being with him messed up my mom. She became a totally different person, obsessed with her 'love' for him. She started drinking too, on account of him being a functional alcoholic. So, when my dad got back and she still wanted to be with that jerk and treated him like crap, he left. But then Killian got killed by a narcoleptic dwarf who fell asleep behind the wheel and my mom got injured and diagnosed with neurosyphilis that was making her act that way and got treatment and she's been trying to repair things with my dad since. It was going pretty good until about a month ago when they had a fight. I thought a family vacation would fix things, but then my mom failed her driver's test and they had a big fight..."

"And you and your dad decided to take slime samples for your crazy step grandmother who married your ex-crime lord grandfather?"

"Well, were going to go to Disney World, but part of it fell into a sink hole and the park got closed."

Emma started at the older boy, trying to figure out if he was crazy, the best liar she'd ever met, or had one really _really_ fucked up family! In the end, she burst out laughing and decided it really didn't matter, because he'd made her laugh, and it had been awhile she'd really laughed... although it made her chest hurt not so good. "A sinkhole? Really? That's great!"

Henry's lips quirked. "It is?"

Shrugging, Emma answered, "I hate those dumb fairy tale princesses and everyone gets a perfect happy ending and fairy godmothers. Disney's a load of crap."

"Yeah... it's not exactly accurate in its characterizations," Henry conceded. "I'm more of a _Harry Potter_ fan, I guess."

Emma wrinkled her nose and shrugged. "Never read it. Magic is stupid, if you ask me."

"Hey," Neal called their attention as he returned holding a ball of white covered in pine needles and moss. "I found this by the-"

Emma leapt up. "My blanket!" she exclaimed and grabbed the woolen thing, checking it over, making sure it was fully intact and then hugging it to her chest before realizing how totally babyish that was and felt her cheeks grow bright red. At least it was dark out. "I... er... don't have a lot of stuff."

"Well, maybe you dropped the rest of it near by?"

"Where was it?"

"Over this way."

Emma bundled her blanket under arm. "If you think I'm gonna walk off into some dark hollow with you-" she trailed off as he laughed and then she glowered. "I'm not getting raped by some creep in a swamp!"

Neal handed her the gun. "Happy?"

She narrowed her eyes but checked it, not that she knew much about guns, but it had bullets.

"Just as long as you don't accidentally shoot me," said Neal. "I've been shot once. It's not fun."

"Oh.. .is that the scar on your chest?" Emma asked, realizing her voice got a little high and why the hell was she staring at his chest? Okay, it was totally just to try and figure out what that tattoo meant and, you know, the leeches! "Henry said your fiancée tried to kill you..."

"Yeah. She'd joined this cult..."

"Is that why you carry gun? In case she shows up to finish the job?"

"Ah, no, not really. The gun's actually Henry's mother's. The car too," he explained. "She's the cool one in the family. I studied accounting. She became a bounty hunter."

"Really? That's so cool. I bet no one picks on her or thinks she can't do stuff. And she gets to bring in deadbeats who hurt people, right? It's like being a cop but you get to travel and have your own hours."

Neal chuckled. "Yeah, something like-"

"My camera!" Emma cut him off, darting forward to grab the silver camcorder which began a haphazard trail of other trinkets that she stuffed into her blanket. There was no sign of her backpack and changes of clothes, but that didn't matter. Clothes and bags were just disposable stuff from the Good Will or Salvation Army that could be replaced.

Emma mentally catalogued all of her personal possessions enough to know they were all accounted for and that's what mattered. She just hoped Neal wouldn't mention her shrieking like a little girl and grabbing onto him when she nearly stepped on a giant snake that was eyeing her carnival ring... and maybe it would have been best to just let the snake have it, but nasty habits were hard to break, even when the stuff came from memories of broken homes.

Back in their yellow Bug it was a bit of tense situation getting out of the swamp and to the highway - they nearly ran over an alligator! - but they made it. Neal let her ride shotgun and pick the music, which being out of radio station range meant an assortment of cassette tapes, mostly by the same artist.

"Who's Lou Reed?" she asked.

"No, seriously?" Henry prompted from the back-seat. "You shoulda heard the lecture I got from my mom when I asked that!"

"Well, sorry I don't listen to old people music!" Emma huffed, sticking her tongue out at nerdy boy.

Two hours later, after playing _Rock and Roll Heart_ through twice, when Emma turned it over to play the A side again, Henry sniggered in falsetto: "I don't listen to old people music!"

"Shuddup! It's just better than the other ones and late night talk radio!"

"Uh-huh."

"Yeah-huh!"

"You were totally singing along!"

"I was not!"

"Were too!"

Before Neal could intercede, Emma somehow climbed between the seats while they were held up in a DUI checkpoint line, into the back and started giving Henry a noogie. "Say uncle! Say uncle!"

"Ahhhh! Quit it, Emma!"

"Both of you quit it!" Neal growled while thinking he might be scarred for life for getting a face full of a barely teenage Emma's butt-crack, though maybe not as much as Henry getting put in a full nelson by his slip of a teenage mom. "We're moving!"

Emma clamored off, letting Henry up as the car lurched back into gear and the two buckled up, smiling innocently at the state trooper who waved them through. By the time the tape was playing "Chooser and the Chosen One" they'd reached the city limit of Tallahassee and Emma gave a casual shrug and said, "I guess I could stay with you guys for awhile. I don't really think Florida is my ideal destination anyway."

"Do I get a vote?" Henry grumbled, still rubbing at his twisted nipple.

* * *

AN: I enjoyed writing Kid Emma! From the flashbacks, she's a bit bipolar in how she's written, going from childlike enthusiasm to existential brooding... sort of like Season 4's adult Emma, actually... I'm sure I got some of hyphenates wrong for Henry's step/great/grand whatevers. Sorry about that!

Next up: The Family Swan-Cassidy-Mills arrives at the motel and stuff happens.


	36. Fairy Tale Characters In Cars

**CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: FAIRY TALE CHARACTERS IN CARS GETTING COFFEE**

(In which the characters nosh on diner food that isn't Granny's!)

The motel turned out to be a dive adjacent to a truck stop and a greasy spoon 24 hour diner. Food was the first order of business, all of them with growling stomachs by the time Neal pulled into the lot, under the glowing neon sign that had probably been erected in the 1960s and never painted since, accept by the pigeons that had left droppings at the top.

"Slug bug!" Emma suddenly exclaimed, socking Henry in the arm, and then threw open the door and squeezed out, clip-clopping her way in galoshes to the diner's front door.

"I'm covered in bruises!" Henry complained. "Please don't make me share a room with her!"

"I can't share a room with her!" Neal shot back as they got out. "And we can't let her have her own room. She might run off. Or, you know, have some other magical side-effect. Or just a regular concussion side-effect."

Henry groaned. "I can't decide if she's annoying, infuriating, or kind of adorable. It's like I suddenly gained a sister and I am totally reevaluating ever wishing I had one growing up!"

Neal laughed. It was kind of true, and this was a very different Emma than the one he'd met when she wasn't _that_ much older. Living on the streets made you grow up fast. Just six months on the streets and in the workhouses of London had made him very different at fifteen from fourteen. Emma hadn't yet completed that transformation. She was just at the beginning of it, really. There were moments when Emma exuded the jaded maturity he remembered of her at seventeen, but then she would revert to more girlish (though not _girlie_ ) behavior and it was refreshing to know that once upon a time Emma still had some childish innocence and enthusiasm. She'd still had some when they met, though not this much.

This was an Emma who'd had only a brief taste of being on the streets, a bus ride and then a few weeks squatting in a lake house with Lily, the thrill of independence... followed by three betrayals, the loss of a friend, loss of a foster mother, and losing a second family because of the girl she'd trusted. It wasn't thrilling independence, that feeling he remembered when he arrived in London, but coming here to this world and being resigned to the notion that attempts to have a family would never work out. There was some relief in knowing you had no one to disappoint or be disappointed by, but there was also the gnawing sensation from the start that being alone however much it served as amour was the opposite of what you wanted - and so when someone extended a helping hand, you couldn't help but take it and try to enjoy it while it lasted, knowing it wouldn't, because life just wasn't that fair.

Emma had said something of that effect to him, Neal remembered now, and he'd promised they wouldn't let each other down. That if the world wouldn't help either of them, they'd help each other. He would forever kick himself for that, like so many things regarding her. Sometimes it did feel like they were cursed, like the universe didn't want them to be together. Between evil fiancees, Wicked Witches, and Snow Queens... who could say how much Emma's missing memories had altered how she recalled their time together had changed how she'd viewed him and _them_ in Manhattan? She'd admitted over ice cream on one of their lunch dates that her perceptions had been somewhat altered when she regained her memories, but it was too late for it to make a difference, to know if she'd have had coffee with him that day if she remembered the crazy magic foster mom, remembering _telling him_ about Ingrid and how that would have obviously influenced him not telling her the truth about himself. But they'd never know now.

Just like he'd never know if they'd have still become lovers if he'd known she was seventeen... and knew Oregon state laws. It was August who informed him, when he said Emma would most-likely be charged as a minor if she was convinced at all. That had been an unsettling shock, that he'd believed her as much as she'd believed him, though his lie was by far the worse one. Thinking about it now... he'd been young and far too naive for his age, but he should have been careful, should have thought about the consequences for both of them when they were a couple of orphans living out of a car.

Love could be blinding.

But love had also given them Henry, so he couldn't regret it, and he didn't think Emma did either, not that part anyway.

And maybe, just maybe, Emma's real grown-up self was still under the surface, because she'd left her blanket and cigar box of trinkets in the car. Whether that meant this ingénue thief version of Emma trusted them not to run off or it was some subconscious bit of her adult self seeping through... it made Neal smile as he followed Henry inside.

At least there was _something_ to smile about.

Unlike Granny's the place was on the greasy side, grunginess evident in the corners where the floor buffer couldn't quite reach and there was probably twenty years worth of gum under the tables. It was packed with truckers even at this late (early?) hour and an assortment of other nightshift people and travelers looking for cheap, fairly reliable meals in proximity to wherever they were going to or coming from. It was the sort of place with which Neal had become familiar since arriving in this world, and even in the grubbier one there was always a sort of feeling of being included even a stranger, given the transient nature of many of even the regulars.

Emma had returned from the bathroom and joined Henry in a booth under an old star shaped clock and a waitress schlepped over to take their orders just as Neal slid in opposite the two teens. Emma ordered a grilled cheese with onion rings and a rootbeer float, Henry got a BLT with no mayo and fries, and Neal got a burger; and though coffee or a coke sounded ideal, he decided to forgo caffeine for a cup of decaff, which got him called "old" by Emma.

"You're awfully critical for a hobo," Neal teased.

"I'm not a hobo!"

"Nothing wrong with being a hobo. Kerouac loved hobos. It was a badge of honor back in the day," Neal argued.

"I have no idea who that is," Emma declared with a shrug while shoving sugar packets and napkins into her pockets like a squirrel preparing for winter.

"He was a poet," said Neal, trying not to smile, because Emma had been clueless before and he could anticipate her response.

"Poetry sucks," she told him. "Only one I've read is Thoreau, and only because he's the poet laureate of Massachusetts, so it was mandatory to read his book about that pond. Pretty sure I can say for certain now that ponds suck. I don't know why anyone would want to live alone in the woods in the middle of nowhere and _write poetry_ ," she concluded, wrinkling her nose at the thought.

"I like to write," Henry defended, though he added, "not poetry."

"Well, you're not a _total_ dork then, I guess," said Emma.

"Gee, _thanks_."

The waitress returned with their drinks then and their meals shortly thereafter. Ravenous as they all were and some truckers playing loud country music on the juke box, there wasn't much conversation. Neal tried not to laugh at the little 'mmmm' noises Emma made when she nibbled at the gooey globs of cheese that oozed from the sides of her sandwich; she'd done that when he knew her back in Portland, but seemed to have stopped the childish habit by the time she got to Storybrooke, which had saddened him a little. He did, to some surprise and silent delight, notice similarities between her and Henry that weren't so obvious in the older, more refined Emma Swan, that he wouldn't have really considered from their shared past without seeing the two side-by-side leaning their elbows in the same way or squinting at the menu.

Henry, for all of his insisting otherwise, was definitely going to need glasses, Neal realized, something which Emma had admitted to avoiding for years - people were less likely to adopt kids with glasses and teenagers just got picked on. She'd gotten LASIK surgery, she'd said, with one of her bounty-related paychecks early on, since chasing down bail jumpers wearing glasses or prescription contacts when the men had a penchant for throwing beverages in her face, had proved problematic. Neal kind of missed them, though, that Clark Kent phase; Superman was the savior with amazing powers, but he was also aloof in his Fortress of Solitude while Clark was the guy with the family, the connection to the people who helped him toward that destiny.

He didn't envy Emma, the burden that had been placed on her because of a choice her parents made without understanding the consequences for her... and without a loving adoptive family to start her out right.

"Gotta take a leak," Henry declared while they awaited the check and Neal rolled his eyes.

Henry had been such a polite kid when he met him, but puberty and a hanging out with Hook and August had given him a crass-streak, it seemed. It didn't really seem to fit his son, and Neal wondered if Henry was trying to be badder-ass than he was, because it seemed that both girls and boys liked bad boys. _He'd_ been a bad boy by Emma's teenage standards when they met, but by the time they reunited, she'd graduated from car thieves to pirates, a fact that still stung no matter how hard he tried to get past it.

"So..." Emma broke the silence, "is 'Ohana' Henry's mom?"

Neal pulled his gaze from the dark parking lot uttering, "Huh?" as he was a bit late on the uptake with her question. "Oh, no. It's Hawaiian. Mean's 'family'."

"You're Hawaiian?"

He shook his head. "Naw. I knew a Polynesian kid when I was younger. Thought we were friends. Turned out he was just playing me, though."

Frowning, Emma uttered, "I know how that goes. I had a friend... she got me thrown back in the System... then showed up wanted for accessory to armed robbery with her boyfriend, so I had to leave my last home. Well, I didn't really _have_ to, but... the way they looked at me, like I'd never be one of them, like they were afraid my past would endanger them, I had to leave. Maybe it would have? My foster mom before that was a real psycho. I figured after Lily screwed up my last chance it was best to get out of Minnesota anyway. It's not like crazy people care about restraining orders or like DCFS enforces them."

"Yeah, orphans aren't high on the priority list," Neal agreed, then amended, "but living on the streets is no picnic either, Emma. Getting food out of dumpsters, shoplifting, avoiding muggers and perverts. It's no fairy tale."

"Yeah, well, there's no fairy godmother's in this world," said Emma with a shrug. "If you want something, you just gotta take it. So I'm taking my life away from that crapfest and doing what I want."

Smiling ruefully, a bit wistfully, Neal told her, "Now you sound like Henry's mom."

Emma's brows lifted at that. "Yeah? He said you're kinda exes but you're trying to work it out."

Neal shook his head and replied, "It's complicated. We love each other, but there's a lot of hurt on both sides that's not easy to get passed."

"Henry said you accidentally got her sent to jail and she accidentally married your step-dad."

Neal snorted. "Not sure 'accidentally' exactly applies in either case, but close enough, I guess. I was pretty much alone until I met her. She was another orphan kid living on the streets. We were gonna settle down, get our happy ending, but a guy who'd known her parents promised he'd help her out, called the cops, got her arrested, took all our money. I never did figure out if he was just a gambling sex addict who really wanted what was best for her and sent her to jail so we wouldn't be able to contract each other and planned to help her out after her release but relapsed and then felt too guilty to try and get back in touch with either of us... or if it was always just that he knew I had twenty grand stashed away and just played us both."

"Sounds like a real jerk either way!" declared Emma.

Smiling a little at that, Neal continued, "Anyway, I didn't know she was pregnant. I didn't know he'd bail and her life would suck. But I did know she wouldn't forgive me. So, when our family shit collided, when Henry tracked her down and helped her find her birth parents and my dad ended up in the mess and tracked me down and that's how she figured out my dad was involved in why her parents had to abandon her as a baby... well... she was angry and confused and upset... and I was engaged..."

"To the woman who shot you?"

"Yeah. After that mess, I tried to be patient, step back, give her space, hope that we could talk things out. But more shit got in the way. And then I was gone, because I did something stupid to get my father out of prison, and everyone thought I was dead..."

"And she married your step-dad."

"Yeah. When I finally escaped, made it back, everyone had just moved on," Neal grimaced. "Everyone thought he was a great guy, reformed from his lapse into criminality as though my father had him do it all, restored to the great Navy man he was." He rolled his eyes. "They were married, and she said she didn't know he was my stepfather, and maybe she didn't, but even if he'd threatened everyone else, including my father and his wife, not to tell her, it wouldn't exactly have been hard for her to find out, when doing background checks and finding people was her claim to fame. It boils down to her just not caring to know," he sighed. "Or it felt like that, anyway. And I held it against her."

Neal sat back a little before admitting, "But... it's not all that different than my not looking for her, not checking to make sure August was keeping his word, not going to find her when I knew she'd been reunited with her parents. 'Course, knowing something doesn't make it hurt less, make it easier to forgive and forget, not when you've gone through life being tossed aside like you're no more important than the junk people leave by the curb. It's kinda hard to believe you're worth the trouble. And it turns out she's from a really affluent family and I'm... well.. not remotely, not where our families are from. And I know her parents aren't fond of me, never wanted me part of their family. They think she could do a lot better than me."

"Why? Because you're an accountant from Jersey or some... third world slum?" Emma countered. "Who cares what people do or where they're from or who their parents are? I've lived in foster homes with really poor people using food stamps who have to save money just to shop at the Salvation Army who are a lot nicer and more honest than rich people in big houses with designer clothes who say they're doing something charitable to help the poor, but really they're just trying to look good for their rotary club or Church and get a tax write-off. You coulda handed me over to the authorities, but instead you're helping me out, even if you could get in trouble. That sounds a lot better than those parents of hers who happily let her marry some murderous douche just because he wore a uniform."

"They're not bad people," Neal countered. "They just want what's best for. I did too. I thought that was leaving back then, but I was wrong. If I could go back and make a different I choice, I would..."

Emma smiled a little and deduced, "You really love Henry's mom, don't you?"

"Yeah." Neal didn't hesitate in his response. "I do. I knew from the first time I kissed her… She wasn't his mom then, obviously, she was just this girl in a car. But when we kissed, it was like… I gotta tell you, it was like I never kissed any other woman before. It was like the first kiss… the right kiss. And I knew one day I was gonna marry her. Only I let that dream slip away. And sometimes people change too much to get those innocent dreams back."

Sighing, Neal expounded, "Henry's adoptive mom and her husband... they had a chance when they were young, but she didn't take it, he got married, had a kid, and though they got back together... with all of the tragic bullshit that happened in between... I look at them, and they're a trainwreck with him fighting over his custody rights with his first wife for their son _and_ her half sister who basically date raped the guy and got pregnant just throw a wrench in their plans. It's like a bad telenovela and cheap cable reality show collided and fused into a new romantic monstrosity, and I don't want us to end up like that."

He grimaced and shook his head.

"Being someone's soulmate...," Neal stated, "sometimes I think maybe it's a moment in time, that in that moment you're in tune, it's right and if you head down a path together then you grow closer, make each other better. But if you let that moment pass, then maybe you're not really soulmates anymore, not when you change so much on different paths. Converging those paths after so long and so much hurt... I don't think it's so easy and maybe not even possible, and you just end up with a forced mess trying to recreate what could have been, singing the same old lyrics but to a completely different tune that doesn't match up at all."

"But if you don't try, you'll never know, right?"

Neal didn't have a chance to answer, a scuffle over by the jukebox drawing their attention. One of the truckers gave Henry a shove, knocking him into those cheap plastic toy dispensers. But before Neal could reach them, the beefy fry cook let out a warning, "Hey, hands off the kid or I'll haul all your asses outta here!"

"Don't wanna eat your shitty food, anyway!" the guy declared, flipping the cook off as he and his buddies staggered out... one of them stopping to piss in the bushes out front.

"What a bunch of creeps!" Emma huffed.

"What was that about?" Neal asked Henry, who shrugged.

"Just being drunk assholes." He pulled one of those plastic eggs out of his pocket and handed it to Emma who's eyes lit in surprise.

"You got me something?"

"You don't have to keep it if it sucks," Henry returned.

Emma beamed and took the toy, popping open the egg which had a glittery pink plastic-rubber bangle bracelet in it. She tugged it onto her left wrist and then gave Henry a quick kiss on the cheek, declaring, "It's great!"

A bit flustered, Henry answered, "Erm... glad you like it... Emma."

Neal considered how fun it would be to tease Emma about that later, but seeing as the group of drunk rednecks had finally made it to the cluster of trucks at the other end of the parking lot, decided, "How about we get desert to go? I don't know about you guys, but I really need to wash the swamp off. Why don't you get your stuff outta the Bug while I check in?" he prompted, handing Henry the keys.

As the kids headed out and he took out his wallet to pay the bill, the waitress came over, looking bemused.

"Two fucking babies at the same time."

"Pardon?"

"Your kids," the woman specified, nodding toward the pair who had, for some reason, linked arms in a most uncomfortable looking way while taking exaggerated steps through the parking lot toward the Bug. "My sister had twins a couple of years ago. That's how she describes it: 'Two fucking babies at the same time.' People think it's just like having two kids, she says, but going through two of 'em in diapers and wailing at three A.M... that's a whole different kind of crazy."

Neal just laughed, having nothing he could say to that. For a fleeting moment, as he left the woman a generous tip, Neal wondered what it would have been like if he and Emma had raised Henry, if they'd been blessed with a daughter as well, a few years later, if the two would have grown up bickering but supporting each other in that way he supposed only siblings could understand - that he and Emma and Henry would never really know.

The 'could have beens' felt heavy as he stepped back out into the humid night.

* * *

AN: I just love Jerry Seinfeld's web series _Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee_. Neal's line about kisses is borrowed from another tragically killed-off ABC character. "Two fucking babies at the same time" is from a _This American Life_ Father's Day episode. Emma is talking about Walden Pond; did you know one of the themes is that water is an _axis mundi_? Neal's tattoo is MRJ's, which means "family", which just makes his character's death and treatment thereafter all the more of a "fuck you".

Next up: Ice ice, baby.


	37. Rock 'n' Roll Heart

**CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: ROCK 'N' ROLL HEART**

(In which one of those favorite recycled traumatic plot device that probably won't be mentioned again happens and there's unintended quasincest because the _Once Upon A Time Universe_ demands quasincest!)

The night was humid and the air conditioner sluggish in the small room.

Sharing a motel room with a teenage boy she'd just met should have struck Emma as a very bad idea. But Lily's betrayal and Ingrid's psychotic break aside, she considered herself generally good at first impressions of people. Well, okay, those things considered she kind of sucked at it, _not that she would ever admit it_ , and she _did_ have a concussion which probably meant her judgment was a bit compromised, but Henry and Neal really did seem like nice people.

Of course, she'd still locked the bathroom door when she took a shower. That was just common sense!

While Henry took his turn, Emma shoved her feet back into her borrowed galoshes and grabbed the plastic ice bucket. The ice machine was just around the corner, the generic white glowing "ICE" in red letters promising frosty goodness. The blast of cold air to the face felt fantastic!

"I don't like massages or something meant to say," Emma sang lyrics stuck in her head as she shoveled ice into the bucket. "And I wish people like that would just go away - I guess I'm just dumb, 'cause I know I'm not smart - But deep down inside, I got a rock 'n' roll heart - Yeah-yeah-yeah, deep down inside I got a rock 'n' roll heart - Yeah, rock 'n' roll heart - Searchin' for a good time-"

"I can show you one, darl'n," a voice startled her into dropping the shovel.

It was the mouthy trucker from the diner standing uncomfortably close. And he had B.O. worse than swamp gas! Never mind the whole creepy pickup line.

Rather than go the mouthy route, considering the guy had pushed Henry around already, Emma stepped away and tried to be non-confrontational. "I'm done. It's all yours."

"Oh, I'm not looking for ice, darl'n," he chuckled, advancing far faster than Emma had thought him capable.

She threw the ice at his face and ran, but galoshes were not made for running and she stumbled, wincing as she felt her ankle twist painfully. In that moment, the trucker grabbed her wrist and spun her, shoving her face-first against the side of the vending machine next to the ice machine and she barely got out a squeak before a beefy, greasy hand covered her mouth. As panic started to set in, Emma squirmed and tried to twist herself free, but the pervert was too big and strong.

The florescent lights flickered, one fizzling out, increasing the shadows that concealed the alcove.

"Your daddy and brother shouldn't let you go out alone so late," the trucker crooned booze breath in her ear and reached a beefy hand around her waist to tug at the drawstring of Henry's borrowed cotton sleep pants.

"Get away from her!"

It was Henry.

The trucker gave him a nasty look. "Gonna throw a sparkly pink tiara at me?"

Henry charged, the guy released Emma, throwing her hard against the ice machine, there was a hiss of pain from Henry, grabbing his hand as blood spilled on the pavement.

And then there was a click of gun cocking, but not from the trucker. Neal had appeared and leveled the gun at their assailant, growling. "I suggest you get in your truck now and leave."

The guy sidled away and then ran off into the parking lot. Emma grabbed her ripped waistband, hating that her hands were shaking badly and limped over to Henry. "Are you okay?"

Holding his bloodied hand in his T-shirt, he responded, "Shouldn't I be asking you th-"

Emma took a step forward and kissed him. It was stupid and impulsive and though he was kind of cute in a dorky way she didn't really like him like that, but this is what girls did in super hero movies and it was kind of hot.

Henry backed away and coughed. "Gross! Weird! Complicated!'

"I-I'm sorry," Emma sputtered. "I didn't mean..."

Neal walked over, breaking up the awkward situation, "That was a really stupid thing to do, Henry. Brave but stupid."

"What can I say, I'm a Charming?" Henry answered.

Sighing, Neal look at his hand. "Well, it probably won't need stitches..."

To Emma, he asked, "Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"

Emma quickly shook her head, though she couldn't hide her limp.

...

"Please put me down. It's just a sprained ankle!" Emma complained, one arm slung awkwardly around Neal's shoulder and the other holding the first aide kit from the car while Henry was carrying the bucket of ice in his hand not wrapped in paper towels from the trunk.

"And you're likely to make it worse wearing those boots," Neal told her while Henry got the room door open, leaving Emma to just grumble in resignation until she'd be deposited on one of the twin beds and then propped her ankle up on some pillows.

"Why'd you come looking for me, anyway?" she asked while Neal tend to Henry's hand. "I was just getting ice."

"Well, I don't know about Henry," said Neal, "but I was going to get ice myself on account of _someone_ having hit me in the nuts with a rusty pipe earlier. Might have been nice if someone _else_ ," he glanced at his son, "had alerted me that you were _both_ leaving the room."

"I just wanted to make sure Emma didn't pass out or something," Henry explained. "You said to keep an eye on her on account of the concussion."

Neal sighed and shook his head. "Well, from now on, no going out alone, either of you, especially not in some sleezy truck stop after midnight."

Shutting the first aid kit, he amended, "I think there's some plastic snack bags in the car to the rest of the ice in. I'll get some more ice and pillows, and some dry washcloths too. Just take some aspirin and keep it elevated."

"Thanks," Emma told him, taking the plastic bottle and glass of water. "I mean, really, for everything."

"Considering I picked the cheapest motel in Tallahassee frequented by rapists," sighed Neal, "I think we can call it even, Emma."

Emma nodded and waited until Neal had gotten the other ice bucket and she heard the adjoining room's door shut, then took a breath and blurted out, "I'm sorry for kissing you. You're just really nice and its been awhile since I've had anyone stick up for me and I got carried away and I've never even kissed a boy before, so if I did it wrong or offended you or something, I'm really sorry. And about the calling you a dork thing. You're not a dork. You're-"

"Gay."

Emma blinked. "What?"

"I'm gay," Henry told her. "Hence the whole 'pink tiara' thing."

" _Oh_." Emma cringed at her mistake while at the same time feeling immensely relieved. "So... I didn't... I'm not a terrible kisser then?"

Henry flushed and groaned. "I dunno. I was kind of distracted with the getting stabbed part."

"Erm... right." Emma winced. "Sorry about that."

"It's fine," Henry insisted, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "I was stupid to try and attack the guy. Guess I was just still pissed off about earlier. I think I take after my mom's mom who's all about trying to solve problems by talking about it. Just not with the right people. Throw in my grandfather who swings first and asks questions later, and I should have learned from our family's luck that both approaches usually result in bodily injury. Better to just leave and then find out a bunch of dirt to blackmail them with like my other grandfather," he snorted with a roll of his eyes.

"Well, stupid or not, it was still very brave," Emma insisted, "standing up to that racist misogynist bigoted reprobate."

"Big words for a hobo!" Henry teased and Emma gave him a slight shove.

"Hey, I may be a 'hobo', but I read and stuff!"

"Yeah, and you were totally just looking for an excuse to use 'reprobate' in a sentence!" laughed Henry. "Who's the dork now?"

Emma stuck her tongue out, then admitted, "Okay, fine, I might have read _Harry Potter_ , but only 'cause I got the book as one of those donated Christmas gifts at the group home. But I didn't hate it. Not 'til my crazy foster mom pushed me in front of a car and told me to do magic. I feel kind of sorry for her, though. She said she accidentally shot and killed her sister when this guy attacked them and was trying to rape her, but he pushed her sister in from him. Plus, some pedophile tried to kidnap her and her sisters when they were little, so she wasn't allowed to leave the house for years or something. Of course, maybe she made that all up, being crazy and believing in magic. Or maybe that messed her up and made her want to believe in magic. Not me, though. That kinda stuff can't happen and have magic be real. That's why I think Disney sucks!"

Henry looked at her curiously as Emma picked at her bracelet. The older he'd gotten, the more curious he'd become about his mother's experience in the Foster Care System, but even when they were living in New York and he thought that she'd raised him, it was a subject he knew she wasn't comfortable with and so he'd never asked - but certain things she'd said or done, her reactions to news stories and the like, had nagged at him over the years. "Emma," he hesitated before, asking, "were you molested?"

Her head snapped up and her eyes widened. "No, of course not!" she scoffed. "Why would you even think that?"

"It's okay to talk about it," Henry prompted.

"There's nothing to talk about!" Emma exclaimed, throwing her legs over the side of the bed, intending to either shut herself in the bathroom, or Neal's room, she hadn't exactly decided, but the pain in her ankle as soon as she put weight on it sent her falling in a heap to the grungy carpet, tears springing from her eyes with an angry, "Shit!"

"Emma..." Henry let out a sigh, "Come on, get back in bed before you make it worse," he said, helping her up while she sniffed and refused to look at him.

"My life sucks," she mumbled after retrieving the sodden ice packet.

Emma hadn't intended to say more than that, but it was like so much had been bubbling up since Ingrid and Lily and suddenly she couldn't keep it all in and it just came flooding out.

"My parents abandoned me. I was found by the side of a fucking freeway in Maine _in October_. I wasn't even a day old. My mom had just tied off my umbilical cord with some string and probably cut it with a pocket knife or some shit. I'd have died of exposure if some kid hadn't found me while looking for his dog. I could have died of an infection if I hadn't gotten antibiotics at the hospital where no one ever came to claim me. So I got stuck in this scummy group home in the crappy part of Boston. A couple took me in when I was about a month old and they'd been planning to adopt me, but then they got pregnant with twins when I was three, so they sent me back.

"I mean, who does that? I called them 'Mommy' and 'Daddy' 'cause I didn't know any better and it right before fucking _Christmas_! So my first memories are crying at the group home, 'cause I didn't understand why my parents had left me there. But the state gave me their last name anyway, 'cause I was only three and I knew my name, but I _was only three_ so I didn't get that it was _there_ name and _they didn't want me_. So I got stuck with two names from two parents who abandoned me, and the only person who took any interest in me other the older kids calling me a baby and hiding my blanket was this volunteer guy who brought candy, and at first I thought he was great, but then... we'd go in the other room and he'd say I had to be a big girl and he'd... touch me. I didn't even know it was wrong until I was like... nine or ten at another group home and there was this kid who'd been molested by his dad who was in prison and he tried to kill himself..."

Voice breaking a little, Emma wondered, "What if he's still doing that to other kids? Cause I never told anyone? I don't even remember his name or even really what he looked like, so I figured there was no point. He could be hurting other kids, like that trucker probably goes around raping hitchhikers or some shit. How can anyone believe in magic and fate and destiny and _true love_ when stuff like that happens?"

Henry didn't really know how to react to that. Shocked, horrified, _really really sad_. He wondered if Emma's previous occupation as a bail bonds person and bounty hunter wasn't just about an easy no-qualifications-required job or even just bringing in deadbeat husbands and dads. Considering that Emma had never lived in one city for longer than a year - save Tallahassee - yet had curiously returned more than once to Boston in the five years before he found her, it seemed plausible that it maybe it had something to do with her past, and some perverted old sex offender she wanted to make sure didn't hurt any more kids. Or maybe that had nothing to do with it, though he wanted to believe that Emma had gotten some kind of justice, even if that wouldn't erase the scars.

No wonder she'd been so messed up by Neverland, Henry considered, and his child-abusing psychopath great grandfather who'd kept Wendy in a cage for centuries. He'd known then that Emma had an abandonment kinship with the Lost Boys, but he hadn't really thought of it going beyond that to any kind of abuse. Of course, he'd been eleven and painfully naive about a lot of things.

"I'm sure someone did, even if you didn't," Henry finally spoke up. "And you didn't know, so you can't blame yourself for not telling anyone, Emma. You were just a little kid. It's the fault of the people who were supposed to be looking out for you."

"Yeah, I don't think any of them ever really cared all that much," Emma sniffed. "Lost and forgotten children and unwanted babies. That's what orphans are."

"You're not forgotten or unwanted Emma," Henry told her. "And everything that's lost can be found again. You'll find a family who loves you and sees how great you are."

"You really think so?"

"Absolutely!" he confirmed, slipping an arm around her. Emma gave him a 'what are you doing?' look just before he hugged her. She tensed up at first, and he wondered if he'd made a mistake, but then she returned the hug, still sniffling a bit.

"I just... I don't want to end up a crazy loser like Ingrid because I grew up wrong."

"You won't," Henry assured her as he pulled back. "You're a good person, Emma. One day you'll have Tallahassee."

Brows furrowing, Emma asked, "Tallahassee? Why would I want a bug-infested swamp?"

Henry just laughed, any further conversation halted by Neal coming through the connecting door with pillows under one arm, an ice bucket in one hand and a cardboard drink holder in the other.

Emma quickly wiped at her eyes, mumbling, "I tried to stand up. I think maybe I made it worse. It was stupid."

"I'm sure it feels worse than it is," Neal said, setting down the assortment of supplies and pulled a cup from the holder. "How about some hot chocolate?"

Emma took the cup, removing the plastic lid and smiled in surprised. "Cinnamon?"

"It's how Henry and his mom like it. I had a hunch you were the same brand of weird," replied Neal with a wink that made Emma blushed.

She quickly ducked her head and took a sip, the warm chocolate and cinnamon-y goodness making things feel just a bit better.

Neal put the pillows on the beds and the ice bucket with homemade ice packs and washcloths on the nightstand before bidding them both good night with a reminder that check-out was ten o'clock.

As Henry got into his bed, Emma spoke up, "Your dad seems nice. And the way he threatened that guy with the gun... Have you noticed that he's kind of hot?"

"Gross. Weird. Complicated," Henry repeated and turned out the light. "Go to sleep."

* * *

AN: So, that chapter jumped around from overly dramatic and angsty to a weirdly abrupt close. And, yeah, I pulled the Emma Almost Got Raped/Did Get Molested card. Sorry about that. If you're wondering how Rapist Trucker knew Henry was gay, he overheard him on the phone talking with Hansel over by the bathrooms, which Henry explained in an earlier draft. I figure Neal called in an anonymous tip to the highway patrol. The Candy Man thing was from a short story I recall reading way back in what must have been Season 1 or early 2 and I can't remember the author. And, yes, Neal overheard the conversation; more incentive to quit the emotionally manipulative bullshit bent he's been on, don't you think? Emma's singing "Rock And Roll Heart" from the Lou Reed album of the same name. Henry's final line is from an episode of _The Simpsons_ in which Homer was hypnotized into thinking he was a kid again, to Bart's conflicted amusement and discomfort. And if you're wondering, how the heck does Emma not notice that technology has advanced a shit-load since the 1990s? Hell if I know! Must be magic or that blow to the head!

Next up: Return to Storybrooke. Yeah, I know, that was a lot of hype for such a short roadtrip that was really just a way to employ a cheesy recycled plot device. Funny how that works, huh?


	38. A Dump Called Home

**CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: A DUMP CALLED HOME**

(In which Emma gets her heart back amidst so much Rumple magic-explaining contradictory nonsense that Bullshit Scholars everywhere would crap their pants!)

The driving time from Tallahassee to the middle of the Maine coast was twenty-three hours, not including rest stops and drive-thrus and traffic jams. Emma was a bit disappointed that Neal had decided against another overnight stay which would have meant a bed and a TV, pulling into a rest stop on I-95 the following night to get a few hours instead, but on the other hand when he fell asleep in the backseat and they were taking a back road detour to avoid a five car pileup outside of Boston, Henry had secretly let her drive _and it was awesome!_

At a gas station in Portland, where they'd had to stop for gas and Apollo Bars, which Neal and Henry apparently consumed like most people drank coffee, Neal had given Emma a keychain with a swan on it, that he said she could use for when she got her own car... and she realized he'd probably actually woken up at some point and knew she'd been driving but didn't say anything, which just reinforced her opinion that he was a really cool guy and Henry was really lucky to have him for a dad and his mom had to have been on drugs and had some brain disease not to dump his douchebag step-grandfather immediately!

"Are we there yet?" Emma piped up from the backseat. It had been like an hour since they saw civilization in the form of a dumpy seafood shack... one she pretended that she didn't recognize from the newspaper in her DCFS file that she was hoping to get a hold of as soon as she was eighteen so she could try to track down her deadbeat parents and give them 'what for'.

"We're five minutes closer than the last time you asked," Neal told her.

"Hey, it's boring! The only thing to spy is trees and sky and the road, the radio's all static, and Henry locked the tapes in the trunk!"

They rounded a corner and a green road sign appeared at the shoulder. Henry interjected, "Good thing we're here then."

"Storybrooke. Seriously?" Emma scoffed and Henry let out a snort.

Main Street was its usual mostly deserted, slightly depressed facade. Emma craned her neck to look out the front window and declared, " _This_ is where you live? What a dump!"

"Yeah, but it grows on you."

"Like what, toenail fungus?"

Henry laughed and Neal had to bite his lip as he parked out front of the pawnshop.

"You need to pawn something?" Emma asked.

"Naw, it's my dad's shop," explained Neal as he cut the engine.

"So... you guys are cool now? Even though he was some kind of war lord and you ran away?"

"You can't out run your past," said Neal, opening the door. "It catches up eventually."

Still limping a bit, Emma followed into the shop where Mr. Gold looked up from behind the counter.

"Ah, good, right on time."

Emma surveyed the pawn shop with a critical eye and the guy who'd either had a kid pretty young or aged pretty well. "You're Neal's dad? I'm Emma."

Mr. Gold smiled. "A pleasure to meet you, Emma," he said, offering a hand.

Instead of taking it, she crossed her arms and glowered. "Neal said he ran away 'cause you picked being a powerful gangster or something over leaving that crap for him. You're lucky he turned out such a nice guy growing up on the streets. My parents dumped me by the side of a freeway as a baby. Not sure I could be so forgiving!"

"Well, we shall see."

Emma blinked. "Huh?"

With that, Rumplestiltskin flung a fist-full of powder at Emma's face.

Before she could react, the blonde teen lost consciousness. Neal rushed to catch her with an annoyed, "A little warning, Pop!"

"That defeats the purpose of surprise."

Henry rolled his eyes and Neal sighed.

"The heart?"

"It's in here," Henry handed over a small insulated cooler, which his grandfather took while Neal carried Emma into the back room and laid her on the cot there.

Of course, the room was already packed since Henry had texted when they crossed the town line. The Charmings rushed to fawn over the unconscious girl, Mary Margaret cooing at how sweet she looked, just like in her vision.

"And in your vision that sweet girl _ripped out your heart_ ," Regina griped.

"Can we resolve the latest Charming family fiasco already?" sighed Cora, arms crossed. "I am having flashbacks to the time I was murdered here and uncomfortable heart palpatations like I might actually have to marginally care about these imbicilic do-gooders."

"They're called _family_ , Mother," Regina growled. "Where is that damned fairy? You'd better not have turned her into a snail!"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Cora huffed. "I would turn her into a duck, clip her wings, and poof her over to the local lake! Those mallards are quite aggressive suitors!"

"Mother!" Regina exclaimed, horrified. "You said you were taking Roland to feed the ducks, not... _that's disgusting!_ "

"Oh, please, between the two of us, which one us is an actual rapist? Besides, we _are_ feeding them - dried mushrooms of the variety that dumb chimney sweep girl gave her baby. The boy was asking questions, and I'll be damned if my step grandson is going to learn about fornication from a man who slept with his wife's first murderer under the corpse of his lover's father after impregnating his wife's second murderer who was also his mistresses' sister whom he honestly believed was the nearly dead mother of his child in the next catacomb over - after which he dumped you for his presumed wife, learned she was your sister, still dumped you for his rapist, and so you had to drag his 'honorable' wandering cock back to this podunk town whereupon you were all cursed and he once again chose his rapist over you which resulted in you getting stabbed and nearly bleeding to death. I am still bewildered on exactly why you love that fool."

Regina looked like she wanted to either punch her mother in the face or bang her against a wall. Thankfully, the wallpaper and Cora's face were spared such abuse by the arrival of the Blue Fairy who glared at Cora, declaring, "You are a horrible woman with or without a heart, Cora."

"At least I don't need a magical corset or immortality to make my breasts look fabulous. And I would rather be unapologetically evil than look perpetually as though I have smelled something foul. Perhaps you wouldn't use mortals like chess pieces, dear, if you actually had a functional pus-"

"CORA!" Snow gasped, covering Henry's ears.

" _Grandma_ ," Henry groaned, pulling away. "I'm _sixteen_. And I've had sex with a girl. Not that I liked it and I had to use Grandpa Gold's Viagra, but I know all the parts."

There was some sniggering at the mention of Rumplestiltskin using Viagra, and the shop owner cleared his throat loudly. "Perhaps we should move this along before I accidentally drop an erectile dysfunction potion in the town's well."

"And all the ladies would throw a par-tay!" Ruby exclaimed, gesturing for a high five from Snow who gave her a sour look and Graham just shook his head.

"All you all suck!" Ruby huffed. "No sense of humor! At least Mulan gets me!"

The warrior imparted, "If men were unable to copulate, they would resort to even more senseless violence and murder than usual. I think it best to avoid such a scenario. Especially as I have a full day of classes tomorrow, and if I have to miss them to fend off emasculated men looting and pillaging, I will have to deal with 'soccer moms' and they are far more horrible than any bloodthirsty soldier."

There was a pause as everyone tried to figure out if Mulan was being serious or making a joke during which the Blue Fairy gave an exasperated look at having to be in the presence of mortals and brushed past them to stand over the still-unconscious Emma.

As she began waving her wand, Cora sniggered, " _Bippity boppity boo!"_

With a warm glow Emma became once more a grown woman, scars, tattoos, and all... though still in Henry's ill-fitted clothes. Her eyelids fluttered open and she looked around, momentarily confused and disoriented before putting everything together. She raised a brow at Neal. "You dunked me in a smelly swamp!?"

"Hey, you ripped out your heart in a land without magic. And it was Belle's idea."

"It was. Sorry," the Librarian admitted. "I didn't think it would actually have enough magic to turn you into a teenager. It was just supposed to keep you alive and magically connected to your heart until you got back here."

"Oh, Emma!" Mary Margaret gasped, trampling her way back through the crowd once again to hug her tightly.

"Owe... ease up, Mom! I think you cracked my rib!"

"Erm, that was my fault," Henry admitted. "Didn't know your heart wouldn't go back in. Thankfully the ER doctor just figured we tried to do CPR."

"Yeah, well, I guess saying 'My mom ripped her heart out and I couldn't put it back in' would have been a bad move," Emma conceded.

"Emma," Snow sighed, her voice admonishing, "why would you rip your heart out in the first place?"

"Everyone in this family has to remove their heart at least once. Preferably multiple times," Regina stated. "I'm sure she was just feeling neglected."

" _Regina_. This is serious!"

"Oh, don't be so over-dramatic. Not everything means something. Sometimes people just do stupid things. You and your recently unemployed husband should know that more than anyone."

Mary Margaret harumphed and David shifted uncomfortably, while Emma winced a little and told her father, "About the whole firing thing..."

"No, it's okay, Emma," David assured. "You were right. I abused the badge. And I have a gambling problem."

"And he's going to meetings," interjected Snow, who then apologized, "I'm sorry that I didn't believe you, Emma. All I can say is that love can be blinding, even when it's true. Your father and I spent so much of our early years just fighting to be together that... well... maybe we've overlooked some imperfections in each other that we wouldn't have otherwise."

Instead of blurting _Gee, yah think?_ Emma just nodded and assured, "Everyone jumps to conclusions sometimes. And I can't really judge about addictions."

"Maybe we can carpool to meetings sometimes," suggested David. "It's not exactly the father-daughter bonding setting I was going for, but..."

"I'd like that," Emma told him, and she meant it. The co-sheriff-ing stuff was a pain in the ass, but she _had_ appreciated the moments they'd shared, commiserating over _real life_ issues and how life could suck, talking with the father who existed underneath the trappings and insecurities of assumed royalty.

"So..." Leroy butted in. "Are we gonna stand around here all night? Cause it's Meatloaf Monday. Gotta get those end pieces. They go quick!"

David threw him a slightly annoyed look, but Regina agreed, "As unappetizing as that sounds, we're violating fire code. And I'm sure they would like some privacy for whatever heart-related mushiness," she made a disgusted face, "is about to transpire."

She then waved her hand, purple-poofing Emma into the clothes she'd departed Storybrooke wearing and uttered a curt, "You're welcome _again_ " before heading for the door after Emma's parents and ahead of the bickering Dwarfs.

"I really don't know why we can't do Meatless Monday at least once a month," complained Happy.

"Nobody wants to eat your rabbit food," Leroy growled.

"Anton likes it!"

"Wait," Walter piped up. "Anton came back with the last curse? How did I miss that?"

"Because you sleep more than Dopey's pet ferret!"

As the curtain shut, Henry walked over from his grandfather's side to the cot and gave his mother a guilty look. "I know things have been rough lately, and I'm sorry if I made it worse, Mom. I'm sorry if I've made you feel like you have to be responsible for everyone's happiness. Maybe I did when I was ten, but I don't care if you're The Savior or have magic. None of that is what makes you special. It's your heart. You and Dad, I got mine from you guys. That's what makes us a family. Love."

Emma was a bit teary-eyed. "What happened to my cynical teenage son?"

Henry shrugged and responded, "Well, you did puke up some swamp water on me. I might have emotionally regressed to my wide-eyed optimist prepubescent worldview. I'm sure it will wear off by tomorrow," he said before giving her a quick hug. "It's good to have you back to your old _er_ self, Mom."

"Yeah," Emma agreed, sorting through her weird new teenage memories. "I... um... sorry about the... with the... definitely gross, weird and complicated!"

"Erm... forget it. _Please_ forget it."

"Definitely," Emma nodded.

"Right... well... I'll just go try and keep everyone from killing each other," Henry offered.

A soon as he'd gone, Emma turned her attention to Gold, demanding, "Okay, give it to me straight. I know you've seen it. I know you already had some idea after what you said the last time I was in here. Henry might believe my heart is special and that... whatever the hell it is, is just some affect of being outside of Storybrooke, but I know it's not."

"Well, it certainly isn't an ordinary heart condition," said Mr. Gold, setting the cooler on the bed and opening it to reveal the crystalline organ. Just as when Emma had removed it from her chest, it glowed more than just the usual red, the luminous magic swirling inwards around the dark center, tiny wisps of it vanishing into the blackness.

Emma looked uncomfortably between Neal and her heart before looking at Gold, "Does everyone... do they know it's not a Land Without Magic thing? I mean, I assume you all did some research..."

"Research is not something your family excels at," he replied. "They are under the impression that being absolved of the Dark One's thrall did not fully cleanse your heart, because your special Savior-ness which unbalanced your magic resulted in your heart and magic attempting to find equilibrium by absorbing the dark magical ripples of their selfish behavior, and so, should they aspire to stop being bickering sycophants who lie and cheat and steal and play the victim of their own crimes, then your heart should have a chance to heal itself. Which, of course, is complete and utter bullshit."

"That's what you told them? And they believed it? Even Regina?"

"Of course not. She would have called my bluff quite easily. But coming from Belle... well... they may ostracize her for believing in the supremacy of knowledge over magic, but they _always_ believe her. Occasionally, the hypocrisy that runs in your family works in your favor."

"Great," Emma grumbled. "So now they blame themselves, when it's really my fault. I put that darkness there, potential or not. And no amount of true love's kisses or magical heart surgeries can cure it. Just... tell me what it means. Am I... am I dying?"

"Over-dramatic like your family as well," he scoffed. "No. You're just losing your magic."

Neal's brows raised and Emma startled. "I... what? But you said...?"

"I was angry. I... apologize," Rumple sighed, grimacing through the admission.

"But, the darkness-"

"The absence of light doesn't necessarily mean its nonexistence."

"No riddles, Pop," Neal cautioned and the older man nearly rolled his eyes.

"Emma was perfectly ordinary until her parents made that deal, until Merlin's Apprentice cast that spell. Children are born of true love all the time and they don't have special powers. But because of that spell, her heart was made different, a... miniature magic sun, you could say, fueled by its own heat. She literally has magic _in_ and _from_ her heart, which is a very different breed."

To Emma he continued, "That kind of magic cannot be sustained forever, particularly since the spell itself was canceled out. What you see, is just the inevitable process of that unique magic you were never supposed to have being funneled away, back to whence it came. You might have accelerated the process with your foolish self-sacrificing on several occasions, and but I would wager that when the Dark One was purged from you, your heart purified, and the good and evil of you and your draconian counterpart restored, the process of your _un_ -Savior-ing began.

"Regardless, sooner or later, like all stars, that magic will burn out. And when it does, you'll just be _ordinary_. Whether you burn it off in some big magical battle tomorrow or it gradually seeps away with time, one day you'll wake up and you won't feel its presence. And while that is something I myself feared, I suspect you will handle it quite differently."

With that said, Mr. Gold left them alone, Emma frowning a little. He was right, she didn't fear it. It was... it was like light at the end of the tunnel, the prospect of a day when she wouldn't be The Savior anymore!

"Are you okay?" Neal asked and she nodded.

"Yeah, yeah. I get to be normal one day. Maybe tomorrow, maybe when I'm ninety, but... I'll finally get to be... just Emma."

"You'll always be 'just Emma' to me, you know, magic or no magic, princess or car thief."

Blushing, Emma considered, "I think only you and Henry see it that way. Everyone else is obsessed with labels."

She shook her head, then wondered, "How did we make such a good kid anyway, when we're so screwed up? And Regina's about ten times worse at least!"

"Well, random genetic mutations do happen," joked Neal.

Emma snorted lightly, as it was probably true. Her parents had messed her up big time, both with abandonment and certain traits that were more of a hindrance than a help. She wasn't going to make any more of those mistakes with Henry, though - and she sure as shit wasn't going to pile any Enchanted Forest fairy tale bullshit expectations on the kid either.

"I'm sorry about... I didn't know I'd nearly die and put you and Henry through that," winced Emma. "What I said-"

"You don't have to explain," Neal interrupted. "You thought you had some magical heart disease from a bad magical diet of living on the Dark Side."

"I do, though," Emma stated emphatically. "I should have told you. I just... the way you feel about magic, I was... I was scared how you would react."

Neal smiled tightly, remembering their exchange in the pawn shop when he found out. "Emma, I never meant to make you think I hated you having magic. Or that I judged you because of it. I should have told _you_ that. Seems we left a lot off unsaid during all of that talking over coffee."

Emma let out a sigh. "Like how I became someone I don't like because of all of this crap that I didn't have time to reconcile, to figure out how I fit in, so I just... internalized it all without dealing with it and did what people expected. I don't want to disappointed anyone, because as The Savior it's my job to get everyone their happy endings. But how I am supposed to decide who's more deserving? It's a lot of pressure, and I made bad choices, but I'm trying to do the right thing now. And this, us, is the right thing, Neal," she told him, reaching for his hand. "It always was. I just... I want to be deserving of it, and some days I don't feel like I am, because of what I became. And because I hurt you."

Neal smiled sadly and gave her hand a squeeze. "I get that, Emma, I really do. I never wanted to become your worst memory."

"You're not," she told him, shaking her head. "You _never_ were. You were never a bad memory, Neal. And I was never consciously trying to punish you for any of it. I replay it over and over in my head, and I wish I could take it back. I wish I could take back kissing Hook in Neverland and everything that came after. All I can say is that I was afraid of falling in love with you again and getting hurt and he was just... there and then you weren't and I had no one else to vent to, who would take my side and provide a distraction when my relationship with my parents went to shit and my life was just... unraveling.

"But that passion was just an addictive distraction with a side of rum, magic, and whatever else I could numb the pain with and use to bury all of that pain and _guilt_." Frowning, Emma explained, "Killian and I, what we had, it like a drug. He was like a drug addict getting his life together, telling me the only reason he got clean, the only reason he had to stay clean, to stop doing 'dark' things, was my loving him. It was manipulative and dangerous. It was guilt-tripping codependent emotional blackmail. And I fell for it and let him pull me down to his level. Because of the passion. Because of the shame. Because I wasn't a hero. Because every evil they said I defeated... I didn't."

"Maybe not directly," Neal argued, "but you finished what my father couldn't, because you believed in your family to fight - when he didn't. And, okay, maybe they did it for some idealized, unrealistic version of you imbued by some bullshit spell done before you were even born, but either way, it got done. You played a part in destroying something horrible. Maybe it was just as a vessel 'til they could find Merlin, and maybe the true love's kiss thing was just a lie he pulled out of his dragon-scale-covered ass to distract everyone from the nonsensical clusterfuck he created by deciding it was a good idea to sacrifice a line of innocent souls to contain his adolescent fuck up at demon summoning _and_ let illiterate hacks record history with a magic realm-jumping pen that could take people into entire universes _it_ created and unwrite entire existences like they never happened. But thanks to Henry _and_ you, that's over. That cycle is broken."

After a pause, he amended, "But I'm not saying you have to see it that way. You just have to see that Henry's right. You have a good heart with or without special magic."

Emma smiled tearfully. "And you don't have to be Don Juan, Neal. I don't want that screwed-up passion masquerading as romance. I want real love. I want... just right."

Neal's brows furrowed, his lips tugging a little toward a smirk. "So, now you're saying that you're Goldielocks and I'm a bowl of soup?"

"I was thinking more the comfortable bed," Emma retorted with a smirk of her own and he laughed. "We've both got a lot of baggage, I get that. I have... stuff that I haven't dealt with that I've just let fester. And you... because of that, I hurt you, and I know that's not fair and it's left us in a... a really weird place. I mean, I slept with a guy who turned into an ape with wings and now fixes furniture down the street with the father of the guy who ditched me as a baby and sent me to jail and I still called him the closest thing I had to a friend to keep my boyfriend who'd recently tried to kill my entire family from being jealous, because that is how fucked up my life has been, that every friend and lover I've had has either screwed me over or screwed me up somehow so my only choices are to ignore that shit or be alone. I should have addressed that stuff with everyone by sitting down and talking, but I'm not good at this, stuff. I'm only just trying to sort through it with Archie and break the habit of letting all kinds of shit slide, because my whole life I've had people telling me I'm not worth it, that assholes are as good as I can get.

"I know that I've clung to people who have a connection to my past, just to have a past when I grew up without one," Emma concluded, "even if having them in my life has been... toxic to my future."

"How do you know I'm not toxic?" Neal questioned.

"Because you've only ever looked out for me," Emma insisted, "even if you made the wrong choices to do it and other people took advantage. You screwed up, and when you saw the result of that, you tried everything to apologize."

She pulled the swan keychain from her pocket - still there in spite of her wardrobe change - fingering the pendant on the new keyring Neal had obviously bought at that gas station. "I stopped wearing this because it felt wrong finding Tallahassee with someone else. Which was stupid, because there's no Tallahassee _without you_ , Neal. I love you," Emma blurted out, and somehow after being afraid to say the words for so long it wasn't so bad at all, saying them, and it felt right, actually, particularly with the way Neal smiled. "I want to be with you. And I just... I'm so sorry."

"I know."

"I just felt so undeserving of all the sacrifices you made. I was so horrible to you. How come you wanted me to be happy when I just made you so _unhappy_?"

Shrugging, Neal told her honestly, "I love you, Emma. And it's mine, that love. I owned it. Even you didn't have the right to take it away. I can love whoever I want."

"But I told you that I wished you were dead. And I called you awful things."

"That was your business, not mine. You are what you love, not what loves you. That's what I decided a long time ago."

Sniffing, Emma accused, "Hey, are you just ripping off _Adaptation_?"

"Really, you're gonna accuse me of plagiarism _now_?" he shot back with a smile, then told her, "Maybe I chose not to love you. After you chose not to love me. Or I thought that I could, just so it wouldn't hurt. But that was stupid. And I'm sorry that I've been a jerk, Emma. We've both made mistakes and hurt each other, and instead of working through it together like you were trying to do, I just kept... pouring salt in old wounds. I guess we both have nasty habits that we're gonna have to work on. And I'm ready to do that. I love you, and I want this to work. I want us to finally get our stories on the same page."

"So do I," Emma agreed, leaning in a little, searching his eyes and unconsciously licking her lips.

They'd kissed before, of course, long ago - though she'd come to realize in the passing weeks that they'd never kissed that night things went to shit, not until the all-too-brief and chaste kiss before Neal had left her standing there sans underwear. Oh, there had been pecks on the cheek, the corner of the mouth, even an occasional affectionate nose rub, but they'd gone from near zero to Indy 500 qualifications that night, pulling off clothes like horny teenagers. It was no wonder Neal had worried she was jumping into bed just to get it over with, without dealing with any of their issues first, including the weeks worrying that it wouldn't be what she remembered, that he or she or they had changed and would no longer fit together in that familiar way.

She'd been tired of worrying. And she'd gone about it all wrong. A sort of 'just get it over with before you psyche yourself out, damn it' sort of thing.

This time, though, Emma leaned in slow, and Neal tipped his head, meeting her half way. It was a first kiss all over again... and a last kiss too, soft and sweet, so much like that kiss outside the train station that Emma felt her throat close a little and her eyes dampen with tears as she remembered her whispered dream of "home" that was shattered so soon after. She'd held that anger in her heart for so long, and now it felt like such a waste.

When they parted to breath, smiling up into warm brown eyes, Emma admitted, "I was starting to think I'd never kiss you again."

"Yeah, never thought you would either," Neal replied, smiling back, leaning his forehead against hers.

They stayed that way for a few moments, then Emma glanced toward the open cooler and prompted, "Well? Are you going to put that back in or not?"

Pulling back a bit, Neal reached into the cooler and pulled out the heart. It was kind of mesmerizing and also a bit freaky that he was holding Emma's heart his hand. Or the magical reproduction that contained her life-force and capacity for empathy, anyway, what with the whole metaphysical particulars of it all in a world that wasn't supposed to have magic and where it behaved arbitrarily differently and thus left the physiological bit open to some debate shy of Dr. Whale performing open heart surgery.

Neal bit his lip, not really sure how best to go about it, particularly given Henry's failed attempt, and Emma smirkingly remarked, "You always did hold my heart in your hands, but I'm more partial to the metaphorical sense, so unless you're gonna do it now-"

"Okay, okay."

He tried to be a bit gentle just in case. He met no resistance here, however, and the heart sunk easily back into place.

Emma smiled and took his hand again. "Thank you. For putting up with me and my crazy issues."

"You were a bit of a snotty fifteen-year-old," Neal chuckled.

"I was not 'snotty'."

"You gave Henry a purple nurple," Neal reminded to which Emma groaned at the memory. "And, you know, the kissing him thing. Never thought I'd be in competition with my own kid for your romantic affection. Considering he was your fake twin brother, I guess you kind of are 'Princess Leia' after all."

"Shut up!" Emma huffed, blushing. "We are _never_ mentioning that again, okay?"

"Okay.

"He's totally going to milk that for all it's worth, though, isn't he?"

"I have seen him eyeing that Chevelle. And you gotta admit, giving him _another_ car you stole..."

"Hey, it was previously stolen," Emma defended. It turned out that Lily's night job was at an illegal chop shop that resold stolen classic cars. "Wait," she realized how that sounded and they both laughed.

"Hey, at least we don't have to worry about him getting a girl pregnant in the backseat," Neal told her.

"Yeah, but considering we live in a crazy magical town where Cinderella accidentally turned her daughter into her son and my childhood friend was born out of a dragon egg, and who the hell knows how Dwarfs and fairies are created, I wouldn't consider male pregnancy entirely out of the realm of possibility."

"Hmmm, good point," grimaced Neal, then he quipped, "Maybe we should give him a rusty axle vasectomy."

Emma flushed. "I'm sorry about that. I really thought you were a pervert."

"S'okay, no permanent damage."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah, pretty sure."

Emma bit her lip, then decided to be bold. "But maybe you should get a second opinion?" she proposed, brow lifting and her other hand creeping toward the fly of his jeans. "Like, I should check, just in case you missed something and need immediate medical attention?"

"Um... yeah... I guess that might be... ah..." Neal choked, wondering how the hell she unbuttoned his fly that fast. Definitely magic. "You... ah... didn't your dad sleeping curse chill on this bed? And Henry. And I think Belle and my dad might have-"

"Okay, now you're just intentionally trying to ruin the mood!"

"If I was trying to ruin the mood, I'd have said 'how about that time you took a dump on my scarf'?"

Emma threw him an annoyed look. "I was a swan, Neal! I didn't do it on purpose. It was an involuntary avian reflex. And I didn't tell you to put your scarf on the passenger seat!"

She huffed. "Do you want this to happen or not? I know we have intimacy issues-"

"I do want this. I do want you. I just want _you_ to be sure about this," Neal explained, taking her hands in his. "Because this is it for me. You're all that I want, and I want you to be okay with that. _Really_ okay with it, if we're going to do this."

Smiling a bit wryly, he amended, "I want to respect your personhood and boundaries and not disempower you with any patriarchal microaggressions."

Rolling her eyes a little, Emma stated, "I swear to God, Neal, if you don't get your pants off before the next magical fiasco, it could be _years_ before we-"

Deciding that Emma had a good point, Neal kissed her again.

...

Belle was waiting on the bench out front of Granny's as Rumple crossed the street, somewhat loathe to join the others without him.

"Are Emma and Neal coming?"

"Sometime before the half hour I suspect and hopefully several times for Miss Swan if my son knows what's good for him."

Belle choked on a laugh. "Rumplestiltskin!"

"What? Those two have wanted to shag since the moment they ran into each other in New York. The dimwit murderess and the pirate mascot were just the manifestation of their fears of rejection and abandonment with a fair amount of guilt."

"Well, it's good to see your sessions with Archie have been productive," smirked Belle. "Even if you're still a manipulative bastard."

"Says the woman who used a simple magical accident to guilt-trip an entire family into being nicer."

"Okay, fine," Belle conceded. "But these people could bring out the manipulative bitch in Mother Theresa."

"Hmm, probably true," Rumple agreed. "And I suppose we're invited to this family gathering as part of their new effort to be more selfless and inclusive. Was this really just a ploy to get free hamburgers?"

"I _do_ really like hamburgers," Belle laughed, and as they walked, the street lamps on Main Street began to flicker.

She shook her head, "I just hope Emma's lost enough magic that she doesn't black out the town. Rebooting the computers in the Library is a pain in the butt!"

* * *

AN: Wait a minute, if it takes almost a full day to drive from Tallahassee to Maine, and they left around ten in the morning, how in the hell did they get to Storybrooke at night!? It's just one of those nonsensical _Once Upon A Time_ temporal paradoxes! Cora, only you would teach a child about sex by gender-swapping water fowl during breeding season! (Seriously, if you didn't know, male ducks gang-rape the shit out of the females.) Neal is ripping off Donald Kaufman, talking to his twin brother Charlie about a high school crush who made fun of him behind his back in _Adaptation_. "I told her, I wanted to respect her personhood and boundaries and not disempower her with any patriarchal microaggressions." is from a _Real Time with Bill Maher_ faux romance novel for liberals: "Be Still My Bleeding Heart" which you can find on the Real Time blog.

Next up: Granny's.


	39. Foodfight!

**CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: FOODFIGHT!**

(In which there's a food fight. Pretty self-explanatory, really!)

Sans keys but with her keychain now re-hung around her neck, Emma used magic to lock the pawn shop door, then entwined one arm around Neal's while touching the swan pendant. He smiled and she smiled back They would never be able to escape the past, the ways in which they'd hurt each other, but those memories and that pain could ground them now, make the happy moments that much more precious in knowing the unlikely path they'd taken to get here, walking into an unknowable future together... and, in the more immediate, into Granny's for reasonably priced mediocre food to replace the calories they'd burned off discovering that they'd had nothing to worry about in the "fitting together" department.

Granny's was packed. The beer tap was flowing, manned by the Dwarves who were passing glass mugs around and repositioning tables. Above the counter someone had hung a banner of butcher block paper scrawled with "Glad You Didn't Die (In A Magic Swamp)". The clever jerk had stuck the parenthetical part on like a homemade Mad Libs they pulled out every time someone almost died in town... which, really, would have probably saved a few trees if someone had come up with that earlier.

It was quite a crazy mashup of people, Emma noted as she looked around, not the least of which were her own present extended family members. Mary Margaret and David had their hands full with Ruth trying to magically throw mashed potatoes while Regina and Robin were sipping wine and Roland helped little Neal cut his meatloaf, joined by Marian who seemed to have called a temporary truce with her ex for the evening. Prince Henry and King Leopold were chatting what seemed to be amicably with Cora and Queen Eva, which reminded Emma that she'd barely had any interaction with her previously deceased maternal grandparents who seemed preoccupied with a dream retirement bromance - she didn't want to contemplate if it was a _romance_ \- and some sort of weird hippie ascetic charity retreat thing between them. Even Belle and Rumplestiltskin were at the party, though they had a table of their own off in a corner. At least Zelena, King George, and Uncle James weren't there, or it would probably signal an apocalypse... or that trio was up to no good. But Emma wasn't going to think about that tonight.

Mulan was throwing darts with Graham and Ruby kissed him on the cheek before grabbing a couple of plates from the counter after which she breezed past Emma with a smirking, "Hope you've worked up an appetite!"

"Do you think everyone knows?" Neal whispered.

"In this town? Probably," snorted Emma.

"Mom, Dad, over here!" Henry called out and Emma groaned a little at being immersed in _this_ family.

"Give me a sec," she told Neal.

"Need to psyche yourself up?" he teased.

"And try to get out of picking up five cats tomorrow morning," she replied before unthreading their fingers and heading over to Graham, who'd just been out-bullseyed by Mulan.

"Got a sec?"

"I'll get more ale," Mulan answered for her competitor, giving Emma a slight nod.

"Not trying to get out of adopting those cats, are you?" Graham prompted and she groaned.

" _Really?_ You're gonna hold me to that?"

"Yep."

"But my lease only allows one cat."

"Not my problem, is it?" he challenged.

"Fine," Emma grumbled. "Guess I'm holding a cat adoption fair tomorrow."

Graham chuckled, then asked seriously, "So, have you changed your mind about resigning too?"

"No," she answered without hesitation. That was Graham, always right to business. It was something she actually appreciated, even if it had been telling her off of late. "Gold made me Sheriff," Emma explained with a shrug. "It was never something I actually wanted. Not for anything more than to play the hero that Henry thought I was, and considering I've been a pretty unheroic Sheriff these past few years..."

She shook her head. "The badge is yours again, Graham. I don't think anyone will object."

"Well, you might have been a lousy sheriff," he conceded with a lopsided smile.

"Hey!"

"I wasn't finished!" He pulled her old deputy badge from his vest pocket. " _You might have been a lousy sheriff_ , but I was wrong to say I regretted giving you this badge, Emma. You were a great deputy. And I can't say I'd mind having you around the station again."

Emma's brows lifted. "Talk about a backhanded compliment," she replied, then allowed, "But I guess I can't argue other than how good of a deputy I actually was. I wasn't even on the job a month before..." She trailed off, not sure how to address the death issue again.

"Hence you were forced to run before you'd learned to walk," shrugged Graham. "Inevitable you'd stumble a lot and ultimately fall flat on your face."

Now she glared. "Okay, really, this is how you're trying to re-recruit me? By saying I'm like Barny Fife?"

"Of course not. You'd be far better looking in a deputy uniform, and without that deviated septum tick."

Emma gave him a 'ha ha' look.

"There's dental," Graham pressed to which Emma rolled her eyes. " _Come on_ , I'll let you out of the cat adoption if you wear the uniform for a month."

"You're just digging yourself in a hole here. I can totally adopt out five cats."

"In one day? _Without magic?_ You haven't seen the cats I preselected. That mangy thing you brought in, another one's diabetic, there's the fifteen year old incontinent one, the three-legged one, and the one that lost an eye to a raccoon."

"You're just punishing me now!"

"Little bit, yeah," Graham laughed.

"You drunk sexually assaulted me," Emma protested, crossing her arms.

"You _became drinking buddies_ with the woman who sexually assaulted me," he shot back, brow raised.

" _Damn it_."

Emma grabbed the badge. "Fine. But I'm not doing any night patrols so you can walk your girlfriend."

She clipped the badge to her belt, waited a moment to see if the world came to an end, but all that happened was her sister lobbing a glob of mashed potatoes at her father's face - with her mother's precision archery aim.

Groaning, Emma told her former and once again current boss, "I should go join the fray."

"Good luck with that."

She shook her head, telling him, "Graham... thank you, for everything."

"You're welcome, Emma," he replied, picking up his pile of darts from the counter, "And I hope you know that my name is actually-" he followed this with a weird growling noise that startled her and Emma's brows lifted.

"I... that... seriously?"

He laughed. "No, but I had you for a second there!"

Rolling her eyes a final time, Emma made her way toward her family's table, pausing to whack August over the back of the head on the way.

"Jerk."

He grinned. "So, you like it?"

"It's clever. You're still not allowed in my house."

Leaving August to pout and rejoin Archie, his father... and Walsh whom she had no intention of speaking with tonight, Emma took a seat between her father and Neal, who looked a bit relieved to have a buffer zone, though he took her hand, giving a reassuring squeeze.

"Thought you resigned?" he asked, voice low.

"And got rehired as a deputy."

"You resigned as Sheriff?" Henry overheard.

"What?" David exclaimed.

Snow demanded, "Why!?"

"I had to," Emma argued. "After firing Dad, it'd be hypocritical of me to stay on. I was a bad Sheriff and a terrible boss."

"Emma, you were ill," argued Snow.

"Which just amplified bad decisions I was already making. I mean, come on, when we thought Archie'd been murdered, I let you guys trample all over the crime scene and then talk me into blaming Regina with zero evidence! Bo Peep was right that I operated by bounty hunter rules instead of law enforcement rules. I've been on the wrong side of the law or walking a fine line my whole life after having a magically screwed up moral compass from the start," she said, which drew guilty looks from her parents and Emma sighed.

"I'm not saying that to hurt you both. It's just what it is. And between the dark potential magical imbalance thing, compounding familial catastrophes, _and being ill_ , I haven't really had a chance to figure myself out. I just made bad or stupid decisions and drank to not deal with it."

With a shake of her head, Emma concluded, "I can't figure all of that out _and_ still be the Savior while also running the Sheriff's Department."

"I'm sorry, Emma," David told her. "It's my fault."

"Oh, no, don't you make this all about you," Emma shot back. "I'm my own person. I let you get away with all of that stuff and behaved badly myself."

"That's not what I meant," objected Charming. "I meant that I have more of my brother in me then I'd like. And, I think, you inherited a bit of that. Along with that alcoholism. I should have been more open about my... character flaws, but you get labeled 'Prince Charming' and while trying to masquerade as my inexplicably reformed brother for years, having to be his polar opposite to get people to never doubt that Prince James had changed... I think I must have got some sort of complex," he admitted. "All I can say is, it's not something I'm comfortable with, knowing that if I'd been raised by a tyrant, I could have turned out like James. And while I have your grandmother Ruth and your mother to thank for bringing out the good in me... that doesn't mean I should have been... suppressing those... flaws until they just started coming out. And then I went to great and stupid lengths to hide that I wasn't perfect."

"That's deep, _especially_ for you," interjected Regina.

Giving her a mildly insulted look, David responded, "What can I say? Midas is a good sponsor. Apparently, under the Curse, he had lost his job and family to a gambling addiction... and, possibly, it's also something to do with how he actually got cursed in a tragic irony sort of way. He was rather cagey about that. Point is," he directed at Emma, "Your mother and I disappointed you once, Emma, and I didn't want to disappoint _either_ of you again."

Emma shook her head. "As long as you're not disappointed having an alcoholic for a daughter, I'm not disappointed in having a compulsive gambler for a father. I just want us to finally _be honest_."

Relieved, David told her, "I'd hug you if I didn't have a lap full of mashed potatoes and gravy on my shirt."

Just as he finished speaking, a glob of mac 'n' cheese hit him in the ear.

"Ruth!" Snow exclaimed. "Stop throwing food!"

"I thought she was banned from the premises?" Emma asked, trying not to laugh.

"She was doing much better until today," groaned David.

And so levitated and shot toward him more mashed potatoes... which Emma intercepted and shot back at her sister. The glob hit Ruthie right in the nose and the blue-eyed baby gaped, shocked at having gotten a taste of her own medicine.

"I've been wanting to do that for _months_ ," snorted Regina, oblivious to the conspiratorial looks shared between Henry and Roland, who readied their spoons, catching the former Evil Queen unaware with twin assaults of her own lasagna... upon which Snow burst into giggles... and soon had the contents of the gravy boat upturned over her head. Of course, Prince Neal thought this was the most hilarious thing ever, and being at the copy-all-things-older-kids-do stage, flung his peas at his namesake.

Naturally, within moments, the entire table erupted into an all-out foodfight, mixing magic, utensils, and plain old lobbing with food-covered fingers. Emma, with her magical defenses raised, managed to remain mostly free of food-related battle scars - that is until Neal grabbed a pie while taking cover behind the counter, snuck up behind her, and with a simple "Hey, Em," got her to turn right into his attack.

She sputtered and gasped, wiping orange filling from her face. "You... what _the hell, Neal!?_ " she accused, not quite able to put the anger into the accusation that the words demanded.

"Pumpkin looks good on you," he giggled.

"Shuddup!" she grumbled and levitated the still half-full tin onto his head.

Suddenly, the sprinkler system went off. Emma had just enough wherewithal to magically deflect the spray from herself, as did Regina. Neal was saved from most of the spray by his pie-tin hat, and Archie popped open his umbrella while Ruby had made use of the service tray she'd been wielding as a shield to cover herself at Belle where they'd been squirting condiment bottles like water guns. Everyone else, however, got drenched before the sprinklers shut off.

"Well, at least your parents won't have to give your siblings a bath tonight," Neal considered of Emma's furiously wailing sister and delightedly puddle-splashing brother.

"Right," snorted Emma. "But why did the-"

Suddenly, the puddles and dripping water shimmered, rather like slime, and with in-unison _"pops"_ and little puffs of purple magic, everyone who'd not managed to avoid the deluge was reduced to snails. Of the former was a matronly woman in the corner twirling a parasol and smirking in satisfaction.

"MOTHER!" Regina howled.

* * *

AN: Cora was a last minute add-on again. I couldn't help myself! I mean, you know you wanted that snail-ifying potion put to use! No Zelena in this one either. I think the others wised up that putting her in the same room with Emma's disembodied heart was a bad idea, and letting her back into Granny's would just ruin the festive mood. I initially wasn't going to include the talk between Emma and Graham, though I had planned for her to resign in some capacity. I feel bad for Marian, and I loath OutlawQueen, but there wasn't time and I lacked the motivation to truly destroy that boring-as-dirt ship.

Next up: In the penultimate chapter, slime is cleaned up and Ruby gets nosy again.


	40. Happily Ever Cliché After

**CHAPTER FORTY: HAPPILY EVER CLICHÉ AFTER**

(In which Ruby gets nosy and one part of the cliché "feminist" happy ending recipe is achieved.)

It took several hours brewing the antidote in the kitchen after collecting all of the snails and trying to make sure everyone in the diner was accounted for and wouldn't get accidentally stepped on. No one had copped to actually triggering the sprinklers, though Emma had her money on either Cora - who brings a parasol to a diner on a clear night? - or Gold, who'd conveniently excused himself to the restroom, which just happened to be located near the fire/smoke detector near the entrance to the kitchen.

"Our son is a _snail_ ," Emma moaned, watching Snail Henry munching on a leaf of wilted lettuce inside a mason jar with a couple of holes poked in the top.

"He seems like a happy snail, though," Neal observed. "I'd totally try the hanging from the lid upside down thing first too."

Emma frowned. "Our son is a _snail_. How are you not freaking out?"

"It's not like it's his first animal transfiguration. And you know Henry - he takes this stuff in stride. Besides, maybe it'll get him to eat salad. He really seems to like that lettuce."

"Hmm..."

" _Finally_!" declared Regina, emerging from the kitchen with a spray bottle that had once held oven cleaner and was now re-labeled with tape and a sharpie: "De-Snail-ifying Potion".

"Should we put them on the floor?" asked Belle.

"Well, I don't want a bunch of people standing on the counter," agreed Ruby. "Granny'll break her hip!"

So they gathered all of the cake-topper covered plates and jars that contained snails and released the mucus-secreting garden pests onto a cleared area of the floor. It really was funny how they all had identifying markings on their shells. August's look like wood grain, Granny's was gray, David's was plaid, Graham had a little star...

"This had better work," Regina directed at her mother before spritzing August first, just in case there was some side-effect; she figured other than Marco, no one would really miss him, and the Blue Fairy could always resurrect him again.

Thankfully, it did work, and August became a human man again... with a lettuce leaf hanging out of his mouth.

In short order, everyone had been de-snail-ified and no one seemed overly phased by the whole mess. Even Ruthie was happily teething on a carrot.

"That was awesome," Henry declared of the transformation. "I could smell _with my eyes_!"

"Yeah, well, so could I that time I took LSD at Burning Man," said August, amending, "which you should never do," after Emma kicked him in the shin.

"I have to go write it all down," continued Henry, and he addressed Regina, "Hey, what happens if you use this stuff on snails? Do they turn into people?"

"Nothing good comes of flipping spells like that," informed Cora. "Sure, if you want a corpse for an anatomy lesson without having to rob a grave or murder someone..."

" _Mother_!"

"What? How do you think the first heart-removal spells were created? One has to have a basic understanding of anatomy first! But trust me," she told Henry, "I knew a warlock who'd turned a live toad into a human just to see what would happen. It was hideous and all it did was sit around and 'ribbit' while trying to catch flies!"

"Aaaaaaaaaaaand on that note," sighed Emma, "I am going to clean pie out of my hair and the mucous-y bodily secretions of various town's people off my hands."

She didn't wait for any further comment, heading to the bathroom and squirting as much soap into her hands from the dispenser as possible. Accidentally kissing her son the other day was bad enough. Having her parents' slime on her hands? Yuck! And the worst part was that they kept trying to mate snail style. She saw her father's snail penis! She could _never_ unsee that!

The bathroom door opened, and she glanced at Ruby, who had dried ketchup in her hair and asked, "So, is my entire family banned for life now?"

"Well, that's really Granny's call. But I doubt it. Compared to your usual brand of fighting that includes attempted homicide, throwing food is nothing. You paid for it and Regina cleaned up the mess. No one seems to care who triggered the sprinklers. So, you know, just a regular day in Storybrooke."

"And people say small towns are boring!" groaned, Emma.

"Compared to life in the Enchanted Forest, it's pretty tame, I guess," mused the werewolf. "And there's cable and birth control..."

As she spoke and joined Emma at the sink, she gave a distinctive sniff and Emma scowled. "Okaaaay, I know I need a shower after hours in a car that reeks of fast food farts, but-"

"Sorry. Just... it's that time of the month and my wolf senses are even more acute than usual," Ruby explained, chagrined. "I just wasn't sure if I smelled what I thought I smelled in a room full of people and with that potion brewing, because I didn't notice anything other than the obvious pheromonal stank of sex when you and Neal walked in..."

Flushed, Emma sputtered, "You can... you can _smell_ when people...?"

The waitress shrugged. "Oh, yeah, you were both wafting endorphins like a couple of horny muskrats. Which, I know, sounds gross, but hey, if I can smell when Regina's PMS-ing, I can get that bitch her chocolate donut sugar fix before she has a magical tantrum, so it has more uses than just winning the 'who's banging who' diner poll."

"There's a poll?"

"It's a small town with literally nothing to do for fun and a bunch of horny fairy tale characters who'd use Tinder to find true love if they actually had smart phones."

"Yeah, probably," Emma shuddered, then wondered, "Wait, if you knew we had sex, then what were you sniffing me for?"

"Oh," Ruby replied and finished washing her hands. "You're pregnant."

Emma dropped her wad of paper towels. "W-what?"

"Well, unless you're fake pregnant from screwed up hormonal secretions due to parasites in the brain again. It wasn't noticeable when you came in, but, yeah, definite hormone change in the past couple of hours. You'd be amazed how fast the body's biochemical secretions change."

The door to the bathroom opened and Granny poked her head in. "Ruby, I need help de-sliming the plates."

"Remind me again why I want to inherit this place?" she grumbled at her grandmother, leaving Emma alone... and trying not to hyperventilate.

...

The diner was emptying out, the two of them the last to depart. Neal shoved his hands in his pockets, then took them out of again to snag the sleeve of Emma's jacket. "Hey, please don't."

Emma blinked, drawn out of her thoughts. "Don't what?"

"Pull away, retreat, whatever, that thing you do," Neal sighed, "when you get emotionally invested in something or someone and then start to over-think and freak out. You've been... disconnected ever since you ran off to the bathroom."

"It's not that. I mean, it's not us," she answered, and sat down on the bench.

Sitting down beside her, Neal asked, "Your job then? Are you having second thoughts about-"

"No. I mean, I don't know. I hadn't even thought about that. But between our constant family crisis and therapy and AA and now a baby..."

"I know our family is time-consuming, and you've got personal stuff to work out besides, but..." Neal faltered. "Wait... what baby?"

"According to Ruby's wolf smell powers, I'm pregnant. Apparently, as we were crossing Main Street, you sperm were crossing into my fallopian tubes."

Neal leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs before asking, "How accurate are her, ah, wolf smell powers?"

"Accurate enough to sniff out Regina's PMS, apparently, which is more than I needed to know."

"Okay..." Neal ran a hand through his pie-encrusted hair, "so... this is a little faster than anticipated."

"Or at all!" Emma groaned. "Christ, Neal, we can't have sex without you getting me pregnant!"

"Um... sorry?"

Emma dropped her head into her hands. "I probably should have figured out that being magically changed into a teenage old girl was going to fuck with my birth control that I haven't taken since leaving Storybrooke! _Shit_!" She flailed her arms in aggravation. "I _just_ got done with this! And I was _relieved_ that I wasn't really pregnant, because I was pretending to be happy and excited and I was really just terrified and I didn't feel anything, just this... emptiness inside when I was supposed to be happy that I was having a kid."

"But you _weren't_ having a baby. Maybe, subconsciously, you knew that, and that's why you didn't feel anything," Neal tried to reassure her. "But, hey, Emma, if you don't want this, if you're not ready-"

"No!" She stood up. "I wouldn't. I could never do that. I-I thought about it when I found out... with Henry... but I couldn't."

"Okay."

She wrapped her arms around herself. "This isn't how it was supposed to go. I always told myself, after Henry... that he would be my only kid, no matter what. That... I wasn't even programmed that way, to be a mom. I mean, living on the streets, I never even _thought_ about it, about the possibility of having a family of my own. And knowing he was with a family, somewhere, but not knowing who or where, it's not because I didn't care."

"I know," Neal told her with a sad smile.

"It's just... you're not supposed to know, or you can't go on with your life. But the trouble was, I couldn't forget him. He was everything to me, except mine. And even now... sharing him with Regina... sometimes it's so hard, Neal. But I still never thought, 'hey, I should have another kid to get everything I missed out on'. How could I do that? I tell myself that I was trying to give my kid his best chance, but the truth is, I don't really know. I was just young and scared that growing up like I did, I didn't know how to be a mom. But considering Henry turned out great with _Regina_ raising him... sometimes I wish I could get that choice back, that I could have the stuff in those fake memories for real. That maybe... I wouldn't be so messed up. And maybe trying to be a mom wouldn't feel like I'm always one step behind, like that Super Mom who existed in New York was just... a figment of Regina's imagination for Henry's benefit, because once I got _me_ back... I don't know what I'm doing most of the time, so how am I supposed to parent a kid from birth?"

"I don't know," Neal said after a moment of silence, standing up to join her under the entry arbor. "I think you just do. All parents screw up. At least a little bit. No matter how good they are. But one thing I do know, this kid will be loved. And more than likely be clever and witty... though with questionable driving skills if she takes after you."

"Hey! There was a tree blocking that sign!" Emma huffed, then raised a brow. "She?"

"She, he, whatever. Doesn't matter. Though I gotta admit, I wouldn't mind a little mini Emma with your ponytail and your sass."

"Really, after dealing with teenage me?"

"Well, I got valuable practice," Neal reasoned, the amended as he slipped an arm around her, drawing her close. "We'll figure this out as we go along, together, like we used to."

"I love you," Emma exhaled, and it seemed each time she said the words they came more easily, and without the nagging sense of dread and memories of loss.

"I love you too," Neal replied and pressed a kiss against her hairline before standing. "Come on, let's get you and the cygnet home."

Already the kid had a nickname. Emma rolled her eyes, but took his hand, a smile creeping into her lips as they stepped off the curb onto the street and passed through the shadows toward the garden on the other side.

* * *

AN: A shout-out to _Galavant_ with the toad thing. Remember when Ricky Gervais' warlock "flipped it"? So sorry about the Snowing snail sex! And knocking up Emma. But that _is_ the mandatory cliché happy ending on _Once Upon A Time_ , folks! (Also, I only just noticed that my in-chapter section breaks did not format in the saved chapter. Sorry about that. I've gone back and used ellipses which seem to have saved.)

Up next: Putting this angry baby to bed!


	41. Chapter Nothing: The Fucking Epilogue

**CHAPTER NOTHING: THE FUCKING EPILOGUE**

(In which The Author couldn't decide between going with "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This" or paying homage to _Eastbound & Down_ so flipped a coin. Kenny wins!)

The Loft was quiet when they entered, just like the last time two months previously, also from a gathering at Granny's. This time, though, there was no rush to remove clothing... well... not for the same reasons. Instead of the bedroom, they headed to the bathroom to wash off 'sex stank', hours in a tiny car eating gassy fast food stank, and bits of Meatloaf Monday. It had been a very long time since Emma had shared a shower _just_ for bathing purposes, but they were both exhausted and the water heater was three decades old and protested having to sustain heat for more than a few minutes.

Those few minutes of heat felt heavenly, somehow the act of just bathing together the more intimate shared act of the evening. Though Emma would never admit it, she got a bit teary-eyed at the reverence of Neal's touch as he ran the soapy washcloth over her stomach, stuck for a moment in the memories of cold showers in prison when she hadn't yet resigned herself to the likelihood that Neal had really abandoned her for good and would imagine him there with her, her hands as his hands. Emma didn't have to imagine anymore. Nor did she have to sleep on a prison bunk with bars on the windows or in scratchy dungarees.

Not especially sexy or colorful, but soft and cozy pajamas were the choice for the evening, a little-used set that had ended up packed away in the upstairs closet back when her father was using her room, remaining there forgotten and undiscovered until her parents move - which had led to a twice gifting. From a local shop, Mary Margaret had gotten the PJs for her that first Christmas. Her amnesiac mother had been so anxious that she wouldn't like them or that they were the wrong size, and Emma had broken down, because it had been years since anyone had given her a Christmas present and she hadn't even thought to get something for her new friend, and she was going crazy with worry for Henry and anger over Regina's restraining order threats that had meant over a month since she'd seen her son.

How ironic now, Emma thought, that she was fine with Henry spending the night at his adoptive mother's. Well, maybe not _fine_ , but he was old enough to take care of himself, and she'd wised up enough to know that she was never going to have it quite figured out how to be the parent in their relationship. At least, not without actually raising a kid _for real_ rather than by the appropriated and augmented hazy memories of borderline sociopath... and by then, well, Henry would be _her age_. Now _that_ was scary! That was something she tried not to think about. Never mind how the fake parenting memories of a real psycho woman would affect her real parenting judgment considering it seemed to have done in a real shitty way the past couple of years. Archie was going to get rich off her family, that much was certain!

Sometimes Emma really hated her family. There were too many of them and they were weird and selfish and sometimes homicidal, and on the bad days it felt like she was being strangled by their good (or bad) intentions or just their physical presence. It was because of their craziness that she'd forgotten charity is not a substitute for justice. She had gotten so caught up in forgiveness to take away the power of the hatred that had defined her dysfunctional family, to not have her story, her identity, defined by Regina's revenge-based happy ending, that somewhere in there, the justice part of the equation, doing right by the victims - including herself - had been forgotten. And in all aspects of her life.

She examined her old new badge with a slight grimace and a sigh before setting it back on the dresser.

What it really came down to, she reasoned, even if she'd screwed up, even if they'd led her astray and left her with even more issues to sort out, more baggage to carry around, is that after being alone for the better part of her life, it was better to be strangled by a necklace of fairy tale characters than to be strangled by no one.

"Pinstripes?"

Emma dropped her hand from the swan charm and turned her gaze from the window that looked out at the clock tower as Neal returned from brushing his teeth, his towel now swapped for a T-shirt and cotton sleep pants retrieved from his suitcase.

"You were expecting farm animals?" Emma retorted.

"Nah, just never saw you as the matching pajama set kind of girl."

"Well, I was the living in a car and sleeping in my clothes kind of girl when we met," she reminded, then shrugged, and admitted, "I think it's some weird osmosis thing from Regina's memories. She has a matching pajama set obsession. At least I was spared the satin and silk fetish. I'm still a plaid girl all the way. Although, considering my father's obsession with plaid and I apparently passed it on to Henry... I'm not really sure I can sell the grunge groupie inspiration anymore."

"Hey, I shop at thrift stores for clothes I wear in public," Neal reminded with a shrug, "I'm not gonna judge your frumpy pajamas."

"There's nothing wrong with your clothes," Emma told him. Sure, she had acquired a taste for pricey leather jackets and boots, but that had come after years of pinching pennies and living in crappy one bedroom roach-filled apartments until she could splurge a little on some nice clothes and nicer apartments than she really should have considered in her price range, leaving her always just barely getting by to live beyond her means.

Maybe her father wasn't the only one with a gambling problem, Emma realized before amending, "Well, apart from that pair of old man feeding pigeons in the park shoes. You really have to get rid of those shoes."

"Hey, if you had to walk through Central Park every day, you'd pick ugly but comfortable shoes."

"I walked through the Enchanted Forest in designer boots," she argued, though he was undeterred and she finally relented. "All right fine. My toe nails nearly fell off and I ended up with bunions that would have taken months to heal without some of your father's magic foot bath shit. But you're still getting rid of those shoes."

"Only if you send those plaid pants back to Rodney Dangerfield circa 1980."

Emma rolled her eyes, but agreed. "All right. They were a stupid Fashion Week impulse buy decision anyway."

"See? We've already got the relationship compromise thing down," Neal laughed, and gave her a peck on the cheek as he walked past her to his suitcase, where he paused at the discovery of a slender package wrapped in yellow paper.

"It was supposed to be a birthday present," Emma explained. "But... that obviously didn't go as planned. I was planning to give it to you when we got to the beach house, but..."

"You weren't in a gift-giving mood?"

"That's part of it," she conceded. "Maybe I should re-wrap it. The whole concept is kind of ruined, but... I really meant what I said, that I wasn't trying to destroy our past."

Rather confused by her cryptic explanation, Neal took the large thin square and unwrapped it. And instantly understood at the Lou Reed single album LP single cover for "Charley's Girl". It wasn't the right weight or thickness for a record, though, and when he tipped the jacket a familiar, slightly yellowed, slightly frayed dreamcatcher with red and green beads slid out. His heart seized up a little. No wonder Emma had been so pissed off when her present was ruined for a second time before the trip hardly began.

"How did you...?"

"I always had it. I took it when Regina and I went to get Robin. I just... it didn't feel right to hang it up without you," Emma explained. "I thought about giving it to Henry, and I probably should have. He was really upset that Gold and I didn't save anything of yours from your apartment, though being Henry he didn't say anything until a few months ago when I found out he stole your credit card after the mess with the Author, when he was told he couldn't bring you back, to hire a P.I. to find your stuff... which apparently he didn't. I've been trying, though. Which doesn't mean I'm going to tell you how much of my Sheriff's salary I've had to pay a hipster dumpster diver in Greenwich village," Emma tried to play off her guilt with humor.

Neal fingered the brittle lanyards and had to blink back tears and swallow a lump in his throat. "You don't have to. It was just stuff. Mostly other people's trash. I didn't have a lot going on, remember?"

Taking his hand, Emma told him, "I shouldn't have said that, okay? It was mean. And I didn't have anything going on until I got to Storybrooke. Just blowing money on vacant spaces to feel like I was successful, that I mattered, because I had no one to share anything with. And... one man's trash is another man's treasure, right?" Neal used to say that as he picked through dumpsters and took broken things left curbside in the Portland 'burbs. "That stuff was yours and I let it get thrown away, and I'm sorry. I lost enough broken and outdated junk in the System to get it, that the stuff matters, and I just... I want to get you your life back. Starting over with nothing sucks."

"Hey," Neal squeezed her hand, "I have plenty of something, Emma. I have you and Henry. And another kid on the way. Plus, my crotchety old man who occasionally tries to corrupt and or murder my loved ones for power. But no family's perfect..."

"Yeah, I think ours is _Game of Thrones_ levels of _im_ perfect," Emma joked., though she understood what he meant and knew he understood that she did, because they got each other like that, in a way no one else ever had. Even though she'd tried to pretend that mystery and constantly surprising each other made a relationship, she knew now that was bullshit. Really knowing someone, that was love.

Neal chuckled. "True. But at least we keep the incest to family-by-marriage. And wedding reception carnage has been limited to property damage."

Emma snorted at that. But hers had come close to serious bloodshed. That should have been a sign. "Yeah, just so we're clear, I am not doing the fancy-ass dress, church, freak'n ballroom crap again!"

"Are you proposing?" asked Neal, brows raised.

"What? No! Honestly, I only got married because my parents are the literal king and queen of peer pressure," she clarified. Well, that and if she'd rejected Killian he would have taken at as a personal insult, probably assumed she was in love with someone else, and then gotten involved in some magical assholery that would have gotten someone killed; between his fragile ego and man pain and her mother's matrimonial infuriation, it had just been easier.

"So don't go getting any ideas that I'll be 'Mrs. Cassidy' any time soon," she warned while pulling back the covers. "And that's another thing. I like my name. Sure, it's a badge of abandonment and misery, but it's my badge of abandonment and misery."

"And a good name," Neal told her with a smile. "Everyone saw you as the ugly duckling who wouldn't amount to anything, but deep inside you knew that wasn't true, that you had something amazing and beautiful to add to the world."

Emma felt her cheeks grow hot. "Neal..."

"You are. And I want us to find Tallahassee... just... not in an actual bug filled swamp. Married or not married. This apartment of a castle. I don't care. My Tallahassee is where you are you."

"Wherever we are," Emma agreed and thought again of that night in Portland, after getting the watches, how that moment, that brief moment she had been the happiest she had _ever_ been. She hadn't known it then, but she was pregnant, and as much as she had hated Neal over the years since that night, he had given her Henry, given her a son, a child she chose to give up and that broke her even more it was true, but the kid also healed her, made her whole in a way she hadn't understood, not then, perhaps not even fully now. Just as Neal, his love, and her loss of him at different times in different ways had shaped her and driven her, for better _and_ worse. Because of them both she had finally started to understand the true meaning of 'home'.

It was a place you just missed, that was true, but it was the people more than the place itself, and maybe it didn't have to be defined by feelings of loss, Emma considered as they climbed beneath the covers. But maybe it also didn't have to be perfect either. She'd been through too much to believe that even magical kisses could chase all the monsters away. She'd also grown rather attached to her crazy, occasionally strangling family. So, as unlikely as it seemed, maybe there could be joy in what was found here, in this small, weird town in Maine filled with hopelessly optimistic (and jaded) fairy tale characters, enough to offset and even eclipse the pain of their past. Maybe this was Tallahassee.

"It turned out to be an unintentionally appropriate dream destination though, didn't it?" Emma remarked, turning onto her side to lean on her elbow. "Reality's never as perfect as you want it to be. But maybe that's been the problem, us aspirating toward some perfect, unrealistic state of being, when Tallahassee really has bugs and swamps and isn't remotely beach-adjacent," she concluded.

"It is kind of a metaphor for life," Neal agreed, before he leaned over and kissed her, soft and sweet.

For that moment, Emma let herself believe, just a little, in the possibility of true love. Then she lay down, eyes growing heavy with the call of long delayed sleep.

Neal watched her for a few minutes, the way he used to when she'd curled up in the back of their twice stolen car, the stifling a yawn, he hung the dreamcatcher from the lamp before turning out the light.

 **END OF STORY**

* * *

AN: Emma's quote about her family is also from _Eastbound & Down_, "It's better to be strangled by a necklace of Mexicans than to be strangled by no one." When I first saw Emma's horrible plaid pants from 3.12, I thought of _Caddyshack_. And poor Neal, he gets a flack from Hook fans for his normal person clothes, though I do have to say, his shoes were _awful_.

END NOTE: Well, that's it. I may write a short one or two chapter follow-up, but on the matter of going into the B and C plots with the dead and FTL's class warfare that some readers wondered about, I have no immediate plans for a sequel. That doesn't mean it couldn't happen. But with the looming start of production for the next clusterfuck season, and all of the no-doubt infuriating spoilers that will be intentionally leaked to add more hazardous waste to this toxic fandom, it's hard to say if I'll be in the mood. My muse is fickle and prone to lengthy hibernation's while my bitterness toward OUAT only increases. But do feel free to send me ideas here or on tumblr. I have genuinely enjoyed writing this story and reading and responding to all of the kind reviews. To the loyal readers who fav'd and followed and reviewed more consistently than I probably ever have, you have my deepest gratitude. It's been fun! **_So long, and thanks for all the fish!_**


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